ANTI-RETROVIRAL DRUGS might become accessible to poorer people living here with HIV in two years, but that depends on more action and collaboration on the part of the Government, the public and private sectors in Jamaica and the international community.
Dr. Yitades Gebre, Director of the Ministry of Health's National HIV/AIDS Control Programme, said that the drugs were accessible now only to citizens who are able to fork out a lot of money for them.
He explained that the drug could become accessible and affordable based on the current trend whereby the prices of some of these drugs are coming down. However, the doctor said that such an occurrence depended on collaboration involving the Government, the public and private sectors, donor agencies and international bodies, which "need to act to make it accessible".
To date, he continued, five international companies have reduced the prices of some of their anti-retroviral drugs, which aid in the reduction of HIV in an infected person's blood and may prevent the transmission of the virus from an HIV positive pregnant woman to her unborn child.
"It will be a relief for those who are paying out of their pockets but still it is beyond the reach of the poor. More work needs to be done to make it accessible," Dr. Gebre said.
Currently, anti-retrovirals are not widely accessible to the Jamaican public because the cost of treatment could be highly expensive and the drug is not publicly funded.
Dr. Gebre explained that treatment using just three of the 16 available drugs [Crixivan, AZT and Epivir (3TC)] could cost an adult about $28,000 a month. But this amount could decrease or increase depending on the combinations of medications used so persons could end up paying between $15,000 and $40,000 a month for treatment with anti-retrovirals. In the case of children under 10 years old, the director said they "responded well to medication and so treatment would cost less," falling between $10,000 and $15,000 per month.
So far, poorer Jamaicans infected with HIV can avail themselves of the other two treatments, which, Dr. Gebre said, were often given free if the patient was unable to pay for them.
The available treatments are the palliative, in which patients take drugs for pain and other aches associated with the disease, and prophylaxis treatment, where the patient is given treatment for opportunistic diseases like gastro-intestinal infections and infections of the eye, lungs, mucus membranes or meningitis that may not adversely affect a healthy individual but are deadly to a person infected with HIV.
On the related topic of AIDS prevention, Dr. Gebre pointed out that last year $315 million was spent by Jamaicans who bought 11 million condoms.
