High cost of anti-AIDS drugs condemned

Former US president Bill Clinton has condemned the high cost of anti-AIDS drugs in the developing world. During an address to students at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, he warned of dire global consequences if the epidemic was not brought under control. Clinton was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying: "In the vacuum created by economic and health collapse [caused by HIV/AIDS], hatred, terror and violence will flourish." The Clinton Foundation recently struck a deal with a South African drug manufacturer as well as three Indian pharmaceutical companies to cut the price of a commonly used triple-drug regimen by almost a third, to about 38 cents [US] a day per patient. Clinton said: "This medicine issue is an international scandal. There's 40 million people with HIV/AIDS, and over six million people at death's door, but only 300,000 get antiretroviral drugs - money shouldn't determine who lives and dies from AIDS."