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September 23, 2008
Africa Gets Canadian HIV Meds After Four-Year Delay
The first batch of Canadian-manufactured HIV medications will be shipped to Africa this week, four years after the government established Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime, a program to get cheaper medications to people living with HIV in developing countries, The Canadian Press reports. Generic manufacturer Apotex Inc. is expected to send a drug shipment to Rwanda on September 24.
The Canadian government guaranteed access to first-world therapies at reduced prices by encouraging brand-name pharmaceutical firms to negotiate with generic drugmakers and allow them to manufacture cheaper AIDS drugs. However, critics say the program is too complex and bureaucratic, deterring drugmakers from participating.
“We could have been seen as the breakthrough Western government,“ said Stephen Lewis, former U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. “And all we get out is one batch? This is awful.”
