Re:Action for Generic Anti-retroviral production

[Guest guest]

TAC Call for Global Day of Action 5 March 2001 and Generic Anti-

retroviral production.

Dear Friends

I would like to urge all the doctors, NGOs, and concerned citizens

fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS and caring for those afflicted in India

to organize similar marches to state and union parliments.

Access to medicines is not only about money and government resources.

It is foremost about commitment. When officials talk about the limited

success story of Tamil Naidu as an alternative to the prohibitive cost

of HAART, they are implicitly supporting the government's lack of

priority on health. Even if Tamil Naidu has achieved wonders in

prevention awareness, where is the rest of the country? And where is the

care for those already afflicted even in TN?

It is true that the central government, since it spends only Rs 13

billion per year on health, cannot afford to pay for retrovirals at

todays cost. Yet it can afford to INCREASE its defense budget by roughly

Rs 125 billion in the same year -- 2001!

Health is still not a priority with the Indian government. The situation

in India is similar to South Africa -- high cost of anti-retrovirals and

lack of government priority for the health of its citizens.

Only when all citizens understand that only by uniting and demanding

care for the health of all, including those afflicted, will there be a

change in government priorities and the possibility for anti-retrovirals

to be produced at affordable prices.

It is therefore essential to mirror the efforts of TAC in south Africa

worldwide, and especially in countries like India that have the ability

to produce generic drugs.

rajan gupta

rajan@...

[Guest guest]

Dear eForum subscribers,

I am touched by the essay of Rajan Gupta about the missing understanding

about HIV/AIDS in India. THe successes whatsoever are infinitesimily small,

disproportionate and just inconsequential when compared to the rate of

spread of HIV/AIDS in India. The worst and most appalling fact is that

majority of us still do not understand the challenge which lay in front of

us, majority of policy makers (may be all) are yet to understand the nature

of the epidemic, various issues related to it and the basic fact about

stopping DENIAL, DISCRMINIATION & STIGMA is severely absent.

Drugs : HEalth aspect and clinical care is something we should not talk

about. Here in Lucknow, HIV/AIDS patients at King 's MEdical College

(Medicine ward) are like a shuttle cock, with doctors referring cases to

other departments and avoiding themselves treating them, and in long run

teaching the patient TO HIDE HIV STATUS and get treated only for the

infection. This further complicates the problem.

Hardly there is a clinic where an HIV patient can get proper humane

clinical care. About destititute homes, (Women Cell) all HIV patients are

clubbed together in one room and a big report in Rashtriya Sahara by my

colleague and friend SUnanda De was carried out in this regard too. These

HIV positive women even do not know why are they isolated and kept inside a

room? They just guess may be it is because of some severe disease or a curse

of God , but HIV does not figure in their vocabulary.

Denial, Discrimination and Stigma, are in their worst mega forms,

mercilessly killing every grain of life in these women.

About defense budgets which go on swelling day by day and other AVOIDABLE

EXPENSES (Like 27000 crores expenditure on treating tobacco related cancers

and the truth is that EACH TOBACCO RELATED CANCER IS PREVENTABLE AND

THEREFORE ECONOMIC BURDEN IS AVOIDABLE & UNNECESSARY).

Time is running high and the community at large must take note of this

and come forward TOGETHER to take the strings in their hands and STOP BEING

A PUPPET, May the morning soon come,

Bobby

ingcat@...