http://blog.aids.gov/2010/11/assistant-secretary-dr-howard-koh-highlights-drug-prevention-month.html HIV Policy & Programs. Research. New Media. Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:58:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://blog.aids.gov/2010/11/assistant-secretary-dr-howard-koh-highlights-drug-prevention-month.html#comment-928 Sr. Dympna Haber, RSHM Sun, 07 Nov 2010 11:25:18 +0000 http://production.aidsblog.icfi.com/?p=346#comment-928 We have religious sisters in my community working in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique where AIDS is nearly at the pandemic level. I have seen the call by UNITAIDS to pharmaceutical companies to ask them to form patent pools to reduce the cost of the new ARV’s, most of which seem to be used in combination with protease inhibitors. Evidently these new medications have fewer initial side effects and enable the patients to be more faithful in taking them regularly (if they can afford them), and thus reduce the possibility of further mutation of the AIDS retrovirus, which would require more new medications.
How can we form advocacy groups to pressure pharmaceutical companies with life-giving remedies to pool their patents, not just for those where AIDS is a pandemic, but also for those who need the most help, e.g. substance abusers. It is a difficult situation, for there is no profit to pharmaceutical companies helping those who cannot increase their economic status, but it would certainly help the whole world if more people could get AIDS, as a disease, under control.
I am very aware that the AIDS situation is very complex – victims of the disease must have proper nutrition and be faithful to taking medicine, and live in a way that does not affect others – a huge expense and educational task. But, how do we advocate to make the life of AIDS victims more feasible, and bring their children to life without the disease unless we make the medications more tolerable for sufferers and more affordable?

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