Zambia Declares AIDS Emergency to Produce Drugs

Today in Lusaka, Zambia's government declared the HIV/AIDS epidemic a national emergency -- a necessary step to begin manufacturing generic AIDS drugs under World Trade Organization rules. Davidson Chilipamushi, the permanent secretary of commerce, trade and industry, said Zambia's government had declared HIV/AIDS an emergency from August 2004 through July 2009 so that local firms can be licensed to manufacture the generic drugs.

Under WTO's Trade Related Intellectual Properties Rights (TRIPS), such a declaration is required to allow a developing nation to manufacture generic AIDS drugs, whose distribution is to be strictly limited to that country. “In accordance with the declaration reached at the WTO on TRIPS, generic antiretroviral drugs produced in Zambia cannot be exported,” Chilipamushi said.

Zambia is home to 10 million people, of whom one in five are HIV-infected. Since 1984, when the nation's first case was reported, AIDS has killed more than 700,000 Zambians and orphaned more than 800,000 children. While patented antiretrovirals cost $300-$1,000 per month, most Zambians live on less than $1 a day.

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