21/05/2004

Aids therapy �a new human right�

The health ministers of 13 African countries have appealed in Rome for Africans to have access to Western-style Aids therapy. They say anti-retroviral treatment for Aids is a �new human right� which the world has yet to accept.

The ministers � from the Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, Liberia and seven other nations � made their appeal following a two-day conference organised by the Community of Sant�Egidio, a lay Catholic movement which has pioneered in Mozambique Africa�s first Western-style national Aids treatment programme.

Some 30 million Africans have Aids, 70 per cent of the global total. Unlike Europe and the United States, where the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy in 1996 turned Aids from a fatal killer into a manageable illness, in Africa full therapy (known as HAART) is available only to the very rich. Although some public health programmes in Africa offer anti-retroviral treatment to pregnant mothers, it is in the form of a short-term course of single-dose Nevirapene, which saves the child in only 60 per cent of cases and the mother rarely at all. It is often argued that sanitary conditions and low levels of education make HAART impossible to administer in Africa.

But that is a myth, the Community of Sant�Egidio said at the conference. They pointed to their Mozambique programme, Drug Resource Enhancement against Aids (Dream), which has 4,000 patients in 13 clinics, more than 1,400 patients of whom were on HAART. The programme�s director, Dr Leonardo Palombi, said since beginning Dream in March 2002, 95 per cent of their adult patients enjoyed a good quality of life while 97 per cent of children born from HIV-positive mothers are free of the virus.

Dream has had 95 per cent �patient compliance� � a term which refers to patients� adherence to the prescribed course of treatment. This is a rate as good as or better than in Europe or the United States, Dr Palombi said, adding that the figures disproved the prejudice that Africans were unable to handle complex medical treatments. �The mother�s point of view and the African attitude are not so different from in Europe,� Dr Palombi said.

Dream has been implemented in collaboration with the Mozambican Government. It relies on a combination of volunteers and donations and low-cost generic medications to make the full HAART therapy available to Africans free of charge, at a cost of around $800 per patient per year. The Community is now promoting the model across the continent, and has established links with six other African nations.

The Community�s spokesman, Mario Marazziti, said the key to the success of Dream was that while it offered the best available treatment it was not just about �handing out drugs�. Dream made sure that attention was paid to patients� nutrition, hygiene, and general health, he said.

In their appeal, the 13 African health ministers called for the pharmaceutical countries to lower the cost of anti-retroviral drugs and for the world�s developed nations �to mobilise human and economical resources truly capable of stopping this slaughter�.

�The therapy that allows people to live with the virus, and to live well, is available, but only to the rich world,� they said, adding: �The right to therapy is a new human right.�

Austen Ivereigh