Poor lands can manage AIDS drugs - Health - Brief Article

Community Action, March 18, 2002

SEATTLE -- The argument that multiple HIV/AIDS therapies could do more harm than good in the developing world because they are too difficult for poor countries to implement was contradicted by research papers delivered at a conference in this city.

Triple drug therapy for HIV/AIDS patients has almost the same results in the developing and the developed world, researchers reported in studies presented at the Ninth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

The researchers reported that the drugs extend patients' lives in Kenya, Senegal and India. As in western countries they become ineffective when used over long periods, and their side effects are problematic. Nevertheless, the patients do not often abandon treatment, as commonly claimed by pharmaceutical companies that resist making low cost drugs available.

Other studies were presented on India and Senegal. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole.