In battle against AIDS, cheaper drugs just the beginning

Aid workers, pharmaceutical companies and donors have made drugs available to a small number of African AIDS patients, but as new programs take root, the lack of trained doctors and facilities are becoming the biggest barriers to care.

Many of the AIDS experts in Africa gathered to discuss their successes and failures at the 13th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa, which wraps up Friday in Nairobi.

A few years ago, activists protested the high price of anti-retroviral drugs and demanded deep discounts from pharmaceutical companies, or access to generic equivalents in Africa. Both patented and generic drugs have become available in some countries at affordable prices, and aid agencies and pharmaceutical companies have set up trial programs to find the best way to treat the 30 million Africans with HIV.

The availability of drugs has dramatically increased the demand for treatment in countries that have experimental programs, but the main problem now is a shortage of clinics, trained doctors and pharmacists, doctors at the conference said.

In Tanzania, donors found the government was willing to begin treating AIDS patients, but the public health system in the impoverished country was a shambles. Hospitals served as warehouses for the sick and dying with few drugs or laboratory tests available. Most Tanzanian doctors, like the majority in Africa, know little about prescribing AIDS drugs, experts said.

The philanthropic arm of Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories, an AIDS drug manufacturer, has formed a partnership with the Tanzanian government to modernize the country's health system, which serves 37 million people. Tanzania Care has begun refurbishing hospitals, revising training programs for medical personnel and expanding the number of HIV testing centers, said Jeff Richardson, the program's executive director.

But while Abbott has a program to sell AIDS drugs to poor countries at prices below cost, Richardson said Tanzania doesn't have the facilities for large-scale distribution.

"Yes, we want to hurry up, but we don't want to do it in a way that will only last a year or two," he said. "The ultimate goal of the infrastructure improvements is not the infrastructure improvements, but to increase access to HIV care."

Medecins Sans Frontieres has taken a different approach in Kenya. Doctors have imported generic drugs from Brazil and have concentrated on streamlining anti-retroviral treatment to develop a methodology to treat as many patients as quickly as possible.

Dr. Saleban Oman, field coordinator for the program at the western town of Homa Bay, said that even with simplified techniques the largest barrier to treatment is the size of his clinic and staff, which can only handle 500 patients although thousands need help there. Nationwide, more than 200,000 Kenyans need the drugs, he said.