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June 26, 2000 (Johannesburg, South Africa): In the midst of mounting criticism of Pfizer¹s narrow drug donation scheme for South Africa, AIDS activists protested at Pfizer¹s Johannesburg office today. Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the grassroots AIDS activist group coordinating the picket, has led a campaign demanding Pfizer provide affordable, sustainable access to its life-saving anti AIDS drug fluconazole. ACT UP chapters in the US have joined TAC in rejecting Pfizer¹s restrictive donation program.

Fluconazole is effective treatment for the brain infection Cryptococcal meningitis, the most common systemic fungal infection in people with AIDS. Life expectancy without treatment is less than two months. In South Africa, Pfizer holds exclusive marketing rights and fluconazole costs more than $9.00 per pill. In Thailand, where Pfizer has no patent on the drug, a generic pill costs only $0.29.

After months of activist pressure from South Africa and the US, Pfizer announced a fluconazole donation program in March. Once the terms of the donation became public, activists angrily rejected the "charity program" as a thinly veiled public relations effort.

"Pfizer¹s deceitful program is unacceptable," said John Bell of ACT UP Philadelphia. "They lied to desperate people with AIDS in South Africa, promising free medication. What did they deliver instead? A meaningless program, complete with a thirty-month time limit, mountains of paperwork for already overburdened doctors, and a laundry list of conditions and restrictions for dying patients."

Despite demands from TAC and from AIDS activists in the US, Pfizer has also announced its refusal to extend the program to other countries, and its refusal to extend the program to other critical fungal infections, such as esophageal candidiasis.

Activists demand Pfizer either drop their price in South Africa to $0.60, or grant a voluntary license. A voluntary license would allow South Africa to obtain quality generic fluconazole at an affordable price. Generic drug importation and local drug manufacture would allow South Africa‹not Pfizer‹control over drug access, while assuring all people who need affordable fluconazole can obtain it.

"Pfizer¹s price-gouging guarantees countless preventable deaths around the world‹in South Africa, in Kenya, and every other country where Pfizer has exclusive marketing rights for fluconazole," said Joe West of ACTUP. "Clearly Pfizer finds it acceptable to allow poor people with AIDS to die while they reap gross profits from the wealthy markets of the world. AIDS activists call that genocide."

NEXT STEPS: On July 9 at Durban City Hall, a global march for HIV treatment access coordinated by TAC and endorsed by AIDS and grassroots community organizations around the world will focus attention on international movement of people with AIDS demanding drug industry and governments provide access to affordable AIDS medications. While Pfizer refuses to allow dying people with AIDS in South Africa access to fluconazole, 95% of the 35 million people with HIV worldwide have no access to life-extending AIDS treatments.

This mass protest coincides with the opening day of the XIIIth International AIDS Conference in Durban. Visit the website for the global march for treatment access, www.www.globaltreatmentaccess.org, for more information.

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