New AIDS Coalition Aims to Boost Access to Drugs

UN agencies joined governments and health groups Thursday in launching a new drive, the International HIV Treatment Access Coalition, to get life-prolonging drugs to millions of AIDS patients in poor countries. Currently, only one person in 20 has treatment in these countries. ITAC, which brings together a host of organizations ranging from the World Health Organization to Brazil's Health Ministry, aims to boost that ratio sharply.

Only some 300,000 people with AIDS, or five percent of the total in low- to middle-income countries, have access to HIV- related medicines, compared with almost 100 percent in rich countries. The UN has set a target of boosting the number receiving treatment in poorer states to 3 million by 2005. Of the 42 million people infected with HIV, 95 percent live in developing countries.

"This should have happened yesterday but at least it is starting now. We have already lost too many lives," Fezeka Ntsukela Zuzwayo, a South African community worker living with HIV, told a news conference in Geneva.

Organizers said the coalition would share information on best practices in purchasing and using the medicines, evaluate health programs, and keep up the international pressure for cheaper drugs.

"If we continue as we are today, we will never reach the UN target," said Professor Joep Lange, president of the International AIDS Society and coordinator of the new coalition. "We need to map out what needs to be done but nobody can do that alone," he said.

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