Joining Clinton foundation opens way for cheap AIDS drugs

A decision to join the Bill Clinton Foundation's initiative in fighting HIV/AIDS may give people in Kazakhstan living with the virus access to affordable anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). "This was a Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] and there is a commitment in this memorandum on behalf of the [Kazakh] government to consider the possibility of procuring anti-retroviral drugs through the Bill Clinton Foundation," Alexander Kossukhin, national programme officer for the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said, from the Kazakh commercial capital of Almaty on Thursday. His comments came two days after visiting former US president Bill Clinton and Kazakh Health Minister Erbolat Dossayev signed an MOU to allow Central Asia's largest nation to enter the Bill Clinton Foundation’s Procurement Consortium - a group of more than 40 countries that are currently receiving ARVs and HIV/AIDS diagnostic equipment at the foundation’s reduced prices. The agreement will enable Kazakhstan to purchase high-quality HIV/AIDS medicines and diagnostics at the lowest available prices in the developing world. Prices for ARVs negotiated by the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative are 50-90 percent less than the lowest price otherwise available and cover individual formulations and two- and three-drug fixed dose combinations that have been pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Food and Drug Administration. The prices for diagnostic tests include machines, training and maintenance and are up to 80 percent cheaper than otherwise available on the market. "The significance of this move is that now the state can procure affordable anti-retrovirals, if all other issues go smoothly as it is only a protocol - a memorandum," Kossukhin said. Certain procedural issues, including certification of drugs to come, compliance of their production and licensing with intellectual property laws are yet to be finalised before the drugs actually appear on the Kazakh market. "This aspect is still quite complicated. However it [joining the initiative] is the first step and it has been made," he explained. According to UNAIDS, there are more than 5,000 officially registered people living with HIV/AIDS in Kazakhstan, but the real number is around 14,500, health experts and AIDS activists say. "Of the more than 5,000 officially registered cases, some 350 need anti-retroviral therapy based on the current protocol, of whom currently [only] 130 or some 35 percent are covered thanks to a grant provided by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria," the UN official said. HIV/AIDS treatment started in Kazakhstan only at the end of 2004. Now the government is planning to provide all people living with HIV/AIDS with ARVs starting from 2008. "Currently, the government provides treatment only for pregnant women - aimed at preventing transmission of the infection from mother to child - and children under 14," Kossukhin said.