| Last Updated: Thursday, 23 October, 2003, 23:16 GMT 00:16 UK |
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Clinton brokers landmark Aids deal - BBC | ||
An agreement was reached with four generic drug companies in India and South Africa to provide certain treatments at less than a third of the cost of patented versions. Nine countries in the Caribbean, as well as Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania will receive the low-cost medication. Mr Clinton said treatment could begin in places where until now there had been virtually no medicine and no hope. Aids organisations have hailed the deal as a breakthrough, with the potential to save millions of lives. Life-saving deal The agreement was reached after advisors from the William J Clinton Presidential Foundation worked with the drugs firms to find ways to cut costs.
"This agreement will allow the delivery of life-saving medicines to people who desperately need them," Mr Clinton said. He said he hoped up to two million people would receive the cut-price drugs by 2008. The high cost of anti-retroviral drugs is a big issue in poor countries. In southern Africa, only 50,000 out of four million Aids sufferers are receiving required treatment. 'Crucial breakthrough' Aids campaigners have welcomed Mr Clinton's initiative as an important step forward. "Providing Aids treatment to those who most urgently need it in poor countries is the most urgent health challenge the world faces," said Dr Lee Jong-Wook, director of the World Health Organization. Irish rock star Bono, a leading Aids activist, said the deal "marks a crucial breakthrough in the Aids emergency, showing that we can, and must, wage a successful war against this preventative and treatable disease". The Clinton foundation raised money from wealthy countries, including Ireland and Canada, to help pay for the drugs. | ||
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