Relief group seeks access to new HIV drug in Africa

LAGOS – A humanitarian group has urged US drugmaker Abbot Laboratories Inc to make a new HIV drug accessible in developing countries, especially Africa.

The relief organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres said a new formulation of Abbot’s lopinavir/ritonavir drug had critical advantages for patients in poor countries including lower daily pill count, storage without refrigeration and no dietary restrictions. “It is a cruel irony that although this drug with no need for refrigeration seems to have been designed for places like Nigeria, it is not available here,” MSF’s Helen Bygrave said at a news conference in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, last week.Sub-Saharan Africa has about 10 per cent of the world’s population but 60 per cent of people living with HIV-AIDS.Nigeria, with 3,5 million people living with HIV-AIDS, has the world’s third-biggest caseload after South Africa and India.More than three million Africans became infected with HIV in 2005, representing 64 per cent of all new infections globally and more than in any previous year for the impoverished continent, according to UNAIDS.MSF provides anti-retroviral drugs for over 60 000 patients in nine countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.It said it urgently needed the new drug because refrigeration is unavailable to many people in poor countries.The new formulation, marketed under the name Kaletra, is in tablet form and does not melt at high temperatures unlike the old version which is in capsules.MSF said the new version of Kaletra, which was approved by the US Food and Drugs Administration last October, was not available in any developing country.It urged Abbot to register the new version in developing countries, sell it at less than US$500 (about N$3 100) per patient per year and remove patent barriers to allow production of generic versions.In a response on its Web site, Abbott said it was pursuing registration for the new formulation in developing countries as rapidly as possible.It also said it was making its HIV medicines available in 69 of the world’s poorest countries.”While pricing for the new lopinavir/ritonavir tablet formulation has not yet been established in countries outside the US, Abbott has taken a responsible approach to pricing its HIV medicines and will continue to do so,” the firm said.Kaletra is a “second-line” drug which can be used when standard anti-retroviral drugs stop working.MSF said that in 2005, six per cent of its patients who had been on anti-retroviral drugs for three years had needed to switch to second-line drugs.One MSF programme found that after four years of ARV treatment, 16 per cent of patients needed second-line drugs.”These data underline the acute and growing need for access to newer, field-adapted second-line drugs,” MSF said.Ibrahim Umoru, one of 1 200 patients at the MSF clinic in Lagos said: “Thousands of people like me need this new drug.For many of us it is a matter of life and death.”Umoru, who has been on the old version of Kaletra for about five weeks, said he has to refrigerate his medicine at a friend’s place several streets away from his home.- Nampa-Reuters”It is a cruel irony that although this drug with no need for refrigeration seems to have been designed for places like Nigeria, it is not available here,” MSF’s Helen Bygrave said at a news conference in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, last week.Sub-Saharan Africa has about 10 per cent of the world’s population but 60 per cent of people living with HIV-AIDS.Nigeria, with 3,5 million people living with HIV-AIDS, has the world’s third-biggest caseload after South Africa and India.More than three million Africans became infected with HIV in 2005, representing 64 per cent of all new infections globally and more than in any previous year for the impoverished continent, according to UNAIDS.MSF provides anti-retroviral drugs for over 60 000 patients in nine countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.It said it urgently needed the new drug because refrigeration is unavailable to many people in poor countries.The new formulation, marketed under the name Kaletra, is in tablet form and does not melt at high temperatures unlike the old version which is in capsules.MSF said the new version of Kaletra, which was approved by the US Food and Drugs Administration last October, was not available in any developing country.It urged Abbot to register the new version in developing countries, sell it at less than US$500 (about N$3 100) per patient per year and remove patent barriers to allow production of generic versions.In a response on its Web site, Abbott said it was pursuing registration for the new formulation in developing countries as rapidly as possible.It also said it was making its HIV medicines available in 69 of the world’s poorest countries.”While pricing for the new lopinavir/ritonavir tablet formulation has not yet been established in countries outside the US, Abbott has taken a responsible approach to pricing its HIV medicines and will continue to do so,” the firm said.Kaletra is a “second-line” drug which can be used when standard anti-retroviral drugs stop working.MSF said that in 2005, six per cent of its patients who had been on anti-retroviral drugs for three years had needed to switch to second-line drugs.One MSF programme found that after four years of ARV treatment, 16 per cent of patients needed second-line drugs.”These data underline the acute and growing need for access to newer, field-adapted second-line drugs,” MSF said.Ibrahim Umoru, one of 1 200 patients at the MSF clinic in Lagos said: “Thousands of people like me need this new drug.For many of us it is a matter of life and death.”Umoru, who has been on the old version of Kaletra for about five weeks, said he has to refrigerate his medicine at a friend’s place several streets away from his home.- Nampa-Reuters