Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
View Related Topics
June 17, 2000, Saturday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 6; Column
3; Foreign Desk
LENGTH: 793 words
HEADLINE: Prices for Medicine Are Exorbitant in
Africa, Study Says
BYLINE: By
DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
DATELINE: NAIROBI, Kenya,
June 16
BODY:
The price of life-saving medicine in
Africa, where the need is greatest and the poverty is worst, is
often higher than in Europe and North America, according to a study issued here
today.
The study confirms what doctors working in poor countries
complain of: that the medicine their patients need for AIDS and
for tropical ailments like malaria and worms are often available only at
exorbitant prices.
"PHarmaceutical pricing is about the law of the
jungle, where might is right," said Kirsten Myhr, the pharmacist who oversaw the
study. "Profit maximization seems to be the only objective of the industry."
Ms. Myhr, a Norwegian who used to run the medical supplies system for
Botswana, said even malaria medicine was cheaper in her frigid homeland than in
much of Africa.
"It's ridiculous," she said. "They only
sell a few boxes, and you have to relabel them in a Nordic language, and it's
still half the price."
Nevirapine, which prevents mother-to-child
transmission of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, costs $430
per 100 units in Norway, where there is hardly any market for it, she said, and
$874 in Kenya, where the need is desperate. Drug prices in Norway are about
average for European Union prices, which are generally lower than American ones.
Kenya's prices are among the highest in Africa, the
study said, though South Africa's are far higher. According to
Dr. Sam Muiki, a World Health Organization regional officer, most Africans must
pay 80 percent of prescription-drug costs out of pocket. If they cannot afford
them, they simply do without, and go home to die.
The imbalance is even
greater when the low purchasing power of poor countries is taken into account. A
course of first-line tuberculosis treatment would cost a Swiss worker only one
hour's wages, Dr. Muziki said, but would cost a Tanzanian laborer 500 hours'
wages.
Ms. Myhr's study was one of two issued here at a conference on
African drug prices sponsored by Doctors Without Borders and other groups
pressing drug companies to cut prices. Kenya was chosen because it is the center
of the small East African drug industry, and is now rewriting its patent law.
The second study was an analysis by Unaids - a consortium of United
Nations agencies - of prices for anti-AIDS drugs in Brazil.
Like India, Brazil ignores Western patents and lets its companies makes cheap
copies of the newest inventions of American and European drug companies. Unlike
India, it has not yet begun to export, but the study found it prepared to.
Brazilian prices were very low: the anti-retroviral cocktail ZDV/3TC, for
example, was $1.44 a dose there versus $18.78 in the United States and $7.34 in
Uganada. Uganda, unlike next-door Kenya, does not permit patent monopolies, so
drugs there are often cheaper.
The copying infuriates Western drug
companies. Parmindar Singh Lotay, regional salesmanager for Glaxo Wellcome, the
British-based drug giant, told a generic maker at the conference: "The law still
says 'intellectual property.' You're telling me I should just
give my property to you?" He described millions of dollars worth of medicine his
company now gives away and argued that it still must make profits for
shareholders, profits that were "the engine that drives tomorrow's drugs."
It is hard to compare drug prices worldwide. The same pill is sold at
different prices in different countries, and at different prices in one country
to small pharmacies, bulk buyers and public hospital systems. Retail markups,
taxes and pharmacy discounts vary widely. Many poor countries use the World
Health Organization's bulk purchasing system, which negotiates low prices. But
the drugs may not reach consumers because of theft, corruption and incompetence
along the chain.
Also, imitations made in India, Brazil or elsewhere may
be of excellent quality or worthless counterfeits. One theme repeated often here
was the need for some sort of international generic-testing lab.
Kenya's
minister of health, Dr. Amukowa Anangwe, opened the conference with an
aggressive speech defending the right of poor countries like his to cancel the
patents of companies whose medicines are beyond the incomes of average citizens.
The speech was drafted for him by Doctors Without Borders, but he stuck by it in
an interview afterward.
He said he expected Kenya's Parliament to soon
pass the new patents law with clauses on importing practices and patent seizure
that the industry opposes
"There are people in the Ministry of Trade,
Tourism and Industry who have reservations about it," he acknowledged, "but I
think the government's mood is that of the member of Parliament who asked, 'How
can we be denied access to drugs that prolong life when our people are dying?' "
http://www.nytimes.com
LOAD-DATE: June
21, 2000 
