Press Statement
ACT UP PARIS
For Immediate Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
South Africa : Pfizer must yield to people living with HIV/AIDS
Today, March 13, 2000, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a coalition of South African AIDS activists, demand that Pfizer either cut down their price for fluconazole or yield TAC a volontary licence in order to produce a less expensive generic version of the drug.
In South Africa, over 4.5 millions of people are infected, and over 100 000 people die every year. Fluconazol (DiflucanAE or TriflucanAE) is a very common drug used to treat Cryptococcal meningitis, widely held among HIV people. When left without treatment, the prognosis for people to survive with that affection is of hardly one month (UNAIDS). "Cryptococcosis is fairly easy to diagnose. However, treatment (...) and secondary chemoprophylaxis are often impossible in developing countries because of the high cost and limited availability o f the drugs required " (UNAIDS, October 1998).
At present, there is no generic fluconazole available in South Africa, as Pfizer's drug is still under patent protection and as the company has a monopole over the market. The cost of the daily quantity (400 mg) needed to treat cryptococcal meningitis amounts currently to $ 18 USD. The annual cost of the treatment for preventing cryptococcus meningitis amounts at least to ZAR 20,000 per person per year ($3334 USD)-- this amount leaving aside all other associate d medical cost (source MSF). It is clear that such an amount is not affordabl e to most people. However, the effective cost of fluconazole is considerably lower than the price set by Pfizer would suggest.
In Thailand and India, generic drug companies are able to sell good-quality fluconazole for 5 to 10% of Pfizer' s price, because in both these countries there is no product patent for fluconazole. Thousand of patient would be able to be treated in South Africa if similar tariffs were applicable there. Fluconazole is only one example among many others of pharmaceutical industry patent abuse. The debate which has been taking place in the public for over a year on WTO trade and Compulsory Licencing gives a clear vision of differents key aspects :
The last months saw many new instances of this : in Thailand, South Africa, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the Philippines, etc. Moreover, the US government keeps pressurising developing countries to comply with higher standards ('TRIPS-PLUS') than what is required to be compliant to WTO agreement.
- local production (through volontary licencing, compulsory licencing or in the absence of licencing) allow certains countries or groups of countries t o produce treatments at low prices, thus compelling transnational industries to lower their own prices (as can be observed in Thailand with fluconazol). - Drugs (antiretrovirals and others expensive treatments against opportunistic infections, as fluconazol) are prohibitive in developping countries (a situation which is unjustified), preventing access.
For all these reasons, Act Up-Paris demand that :
- pharmaceutical industries in general stop pressuring poor countries, and give up their deadly tariff policies;
- Pfizer either yield to the South African HIV people's demand, and conform to the line of price of generic currently most competitive (20 times less expensive in Thailand); or allow to Treatment Access Campaign the possibility to produce generic fluconazole without delays.
TAC's action is supported by Act Up in France and in the US, as well as by MSF every where in the world.
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