Africa
The Human Rights Situation in Africa From - Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights Pretoria, South Africa, 2-16 May 2002.
Do Asians face a racial divide in Africa? By Simon Denyer in Nairobi
Indians recount painful exile from Uganda ASIAN VOICE, 18 August 2001
Fighting Racism - medicine
Most people of our world (so called 3rd world) cannot afford even basic medicine due to the Western Economic system and price fixing, patents, trademarks, embargos, profiteering and corruption. These people are trying to help themselves
Bargain lifesaver
Nicole Johnston, Washington DC
HUNDREDS
OF THOUSANDS OF BABIES
each year could be spared from starting life with HIV at a cost of just $4 each.
That's the startlingly hopeful conclusion from a study conducted in Uganda.
More than 600 women with HIV took part in the trial. All were given an antiviral
drug during labour, and their babies were treated with the same drug. Half the
mothers and infants were given AZT, the other half a newer drug called
nevirapine. Both interfere with the enzyme reverse transcriptase, without which
HIV cannot replicate.
"We were hoping nevirapine would be as good as AZT, but it turned out to be
better," says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy
and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) near Washington DC, which sponsored the trial.
In sub-Saharan Africa, between 25 and 35 per cent of babies born to women with
HIV themselves become infected. In the group receiving AZT, 25.1 per cent were
infected at around 15 weeks. But in the nevirapine group, the figure was just
13.1 per cent.
Nevirapine also has the advantage that it crosses the placenta readily and
breaks down slowly, so can be given in small doses. In the Ugandan trial, the
women received a single dose of nevirapine during labour, and their babies were
given another dose within three days of birth. AZT had to be given several times
over several hours during labour, and twice a day to the infants for one week.
These modest doses mean that developing countries should be able to afford
nevirapine. In Europe and North America, AZT is often given to pregnant women
with HIV over a period of months, cutting the rate of transmission to less than
10 per cent. But this costs more than $800.
At just $4 per mother and child, the nevirapine treatment should be within the
reach of countries that until now have had to give up on protecting their
infants from HIV. And the NIAID is now even suggesting that the nevirapine
treatment is so cheap that it could be given routinely to women in labour in
developing countries experiencing severe HIV epidemics.
But James McIntyre, director of the perinatal HIV research unit at the Chris
Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg, says this ignores the realities of
health care in poor countries. "Only 50 per cent of women in developing
countries deliver in a health service setting," he says. McIntyre argues
that health infrastructures need to be improved to offer all pregnant women
tests for HIV so that they can be given the drug during labour if they are
infected.
The optimism about nevirapine and mother-to-child transmission of HIV comes hard
on the heels of preliminary results suggesting that a simple drugs cocktail
could provide an affordable treatment for adults with AIDS in developing
countries. But much work remains to be done. For instance, about one in seven
HIV-free babies born to infected mothers will acquire the virus from breast
milk. The next phase of the Ugandan study will look at the effectiveness of
nevirapine at preventing transmission during breastfeeding.
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