18 October 2000
Cape Town, South Africa — South Africa's "Treatment Action Campaign" Tuesday admitted unlawfully importing a generic drug to treat HIV/AIDS-related diseases and said it would distribute it to medical doctors, in defiance of government legislation.
TAC chairman Zackie Achmat said their action was part of its defiance campaign against patent abuse and AIDS profiteering by multinational pharmaceutical companies.
The group has imported 5000 Biozole capsules from Thailand and would distribute it to a network of doctors and pharmacists. Biozole was a generic equivalent to US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's Fluconazole.
Achmat said the Pfizer sold the drug for 11.50 US dollars per 200 milligram capsule to the private sector and 4.08 dollars per capsule to the public sector. He said the Thai equivalent known as Biozole cost US 25 cents.
Fluconozole is protected by a patent in South Africa, so generic manufacturing is not allowed and the company is able to set its own price.
Laboratory studies on the generic made in Thailand have shown it to be as effective as the original.
Meanwhile, in another breakthrough for HIV/AIDS sufferers, the anti-retroviral drug AZT will be made freely available to all rape victims within the Western Cape.
Western Cape's health minister Nick Koornhof on Tuesday said the University of Cape Town's Infectious Diseases Unit has found that there was a higher incidence of vaginal tearing during rape than during consensual intercourse, making transmission of the HI Virus more likely.
The Unit recommended that a four-week course of AZT should be administered to rape survivors.
"The basis for believing that AZT might be effective after rape is its proven efficacy in preventing transmission from mother-to-child and from patient to health care worker. Furthermore, prophylaxis after sexual exposure has been shown to be effective in animal models."
"There will also be a need to examine the efficacy of post-exposure prophylaxis, following rape. Therefore, I have decided that Province will provide the required treatment, if clinicians are willing to prescribe it and provided that patients or their guardians give consent," Koornhof said.
He said the cost of about 65 US dollars for a four-week course would be paid by the provincial government. Koornhof said a special emphasis will be placed on ensuring that the treatment is available as soon as possible, to children who have been raped.
This will be done initially at specialised centres for children in the province. As soon as the necessary arrangements have been made the Department will extend this treatment to adult rape survivors, at rape centres to be identified through the rest of the Western Cape.
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