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July 19, 2002
Rio + 10 Series: UNAIDS' Accelerating Access Initiative May Decelerate Access
by William Baue
ACT UP Paris criticizes Accelerating Access, a joint United Nations/pharmaceutical industry
initiative, for limiting price reduction on AIDS medicine in developing nations.
SocialFunds.com --
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has coined an acronym, WEHAB (Water and sanitation,
Energy, Health, Agriculture, and Biodiversity) to describe the five key areas he feels concrete
results can be achieved through the World Summit on Sustainable Development. While
summit organizers seem to be giving equal weight to each of the areas, the Secretary-General has
said in the past that world health is one of his top concerns, especially HIV/AIDS.
 "[T]he fight against AIDS has become my
personal priority," said Secretary-General Annan in April 2001 in Amsterdam. "The epidemic is the
greatest public health challenge of our times and we must harness the expertise of all sectors of
society. The pharmaceutical industry is playing a crucial role."
The Secretary-General
made the statement after meeting with international pharmaceutical companies as part of the Accelerating Access Initiative (AAI).
The initiative involves a dialogue between the UN and the pharmaceutical industry with the
intention of making HIV/AIDS medicines and diagnostic equipment more available and affordable in
developing countries. AAI was launched in May 2000 by the Joint United Nations Programme on
HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
AAI consists of five pharmaceutical companies: Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), GlaxoSmithKline (GLX), Hoffman-LaRoche (RHHBF.PK), and Merck (MRK). At the April 2001
Amsterdam meeting, the pharmaceutical companies agreed to continue to accelerate the price
reduction of HIV/AIDS medicine, particularly for the least developed countries in Africa. The
meeting was not attended by Merck, but was attended by two other companies not participating in
AAI, Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and
Pfizer (PFE).
Seven
months after the Amsterdam meeting, AAI issued a progress report regarding the status of the
desired price reductions. The November 2001 Progress Report conceded that there had been limited
success.
"It is estimated that today some 27,000 people in countries supported through
Accelerating Access are on ARV [antiretroviral] therapy. Although these numbers represent only a
fraction of those in need of antiretroviral therapy, they herald the beginning of an enormous
effort to scale up access to treatment," the report states. "WHO [the World Health Organization]
estimates that, overall, only some 230,000 people have access to antiretroviral therapy in low- and
middle-income countries (half of them in Brazil alone), while some 6 million are in need."
On May 15, 2002, just days after the two-year anniversary of the launch of AAI, the Paris
chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Release Power (ACT UP Paris) released a statement condemning AAI
as a puppet of the pharmaceutical industry.
"Accelerating Access serves, above all,
pharmaceutical companies who profit from a partnership with international institutions while using
the program to maintain their monopolies and to limit any reductions in price," the statement
reads. "According to the most optimistic of estimates, after two years Accelerating Access has
only resulted in getting an additional 0.1% of people with AIDS on treatment." The statement goes
on to say that WHO estimates that 10 million people require immediate antiretroviral therapy.
ACT UP Paris especially criticized AAI for not including generic drug manufacturers in the
initiative.
Last week, Oxfam International released a report demonstrating that
generic competition is necessary to lower AIDS medicine prices. The report tracked prices of brand
name drugs in Uganda, an AAI country, from May 2000 to April 2002.
"We had been promised
price cuts since May 2000 and didn't see them until we started to import generics [from India] in
October," said Dr. Cissy Kityo, deputy director of the Joint Clinical Research Council in Uganda.
Prices fell by as much as 97% over the two years of Oxfam's study.
Oxfam points out the
irony that World Trade Organization (WTO) rules will prevent Uganda from importing generics from
India in 2005. ACT UP Paris claims that AAI discourages generic imports because the price-reducing
effect does not serve the interests of the AAI-member pharmaceutical companies.
"Accelerating Access is a striking example of a dishonest compromise between international
institutions and the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of people and public health," ACT UP
Paris' statement reads.
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