For the past several years AIDS activists have charged that patents on HIV antivirals has significantly harmed the ability of African nations to respond to the AIDS crisis. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, however, suggests that this is simply not the case.
Researcher Amir Attaran, an adjunct lecturer in public policy and a researcher at the Center for International Development, examined the status of patents on anti-AIDS drugs and found that, in fact, most such drugs were not patented in African nations. Looking at the patent status of 15 drugs in 53 African countries, they found only 172 actually existing patents for such drugs out of the 795 patents that might exist. In fact, in several African countries there were no patents on any existing HIV drugs — and, therefore, no legal barriers to using generic versions of patented AIDS drugs — but almost no treatment of AIDS patients with those antivirals.
Not surprisingly, the real obstacle to treating HIV in Africa is the continent’s endemic poverty. According to Attaran, even with generics AIDS treatment is still going to cost $350 per person in countries that typically budget less than $10 per person in their health budgets.
Attaran could have also added to the obstacles state resistance to the reality of the AIDS epidemic. Just this month, for example, South Africa’s government stepped into a major controversy over its continuing suppression of an internal government report on the AIDS epidemic in that country. The report was suppressed largely because it called for the widespread use of anti-HIV drugs — an approach which continues to be opposed by South African president Thabo Mbeki (Mbeki has, in the past, turned down large donations of HIV drugs in accordance with this policy).
Sources:
One Expert’s Opinion: Amir Attaran Says New Study Shows that Patents Are Not the Obstacle to HIV Treatment in Africa. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard), Press Release, October 22, 2001.
Do patents for antiretroviral drugs constrain access to AIDS treatment in Africa? Amir Attaran, Lee Gillespie-White, Journal of the American Medical Association, 2001;286:1886-1892.