Import of cheap AIDS drugs barred

An anti-AIDS drug row has erupted between Zimbabwean AIDS activists and the government following a move by authorities to outlaw the import of low-cost antiretroviral drugs. The activists allege that the state-controlled Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MACS) barred the entry of the Indian-made drug, Evilest, at Harare international airport last November to promote the sale of a locally manufactured drug. Lynda Francis, executive director of The Centre, an NGO catering to the nutritional and medicinal needs of HIV-positive people, said hundreds of lives were endangered when the drugs were impounded by the MACS. Francis was quoted by a local newspaper, the Zimbabwe Standard, as saying: "The MACS has now totally prohibited us from importing the Evilest drug, claiming the medicine's quality is not up to scratch. But this drug, which has saved a lot of lives, has been okayed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the drug's Indian manufacturers are also registered by the WHO."