Gov't lobbies for cheaper AIDS drugs

MINISTER OF Health John Junor says the government is negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to significantly lower the cost of drugs for persons living with HIV/AIDS.

In an interview with The Gleaner this week, Minister Junor said he hoped there will be an agreement this year.

The Minister said that he and other local health officials, including Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Peter Figueroa, Howard Hamilton, chairman of the National AIDS Committee (NAC) and Ainsley Reid, director of the Jamaica Network of Seropositives (JN+), will be making an appeal to the United Nations special session on HIV/AIDS next week.

The session, to be held June 25-27 at the UN headquarters in New York, will have as its theme "Global Crisis-Global Action." The Jamaican delegation will be advocating for more funding for AIDS research here.

A June 5 release from UNAIDS, said that the special session was being called to address the problem of HIV/AIDS and secure a global commitment to combat the epidemic.

The release pointed out that the special session stemmed from last year's Millennium Declaration where the Assembly, in its resolution 55/13, decided to convene the special session, including four interactive roundtables, in which HIV/AIDS in Africa will be a cross-cutting theme.

According to the UNAIDS' release and another from the US State Department's Washington file, top officials are expected to sign a draft declaration expressing their commitment to conquer the global epidemic.

The proposed declaration commits the international community to halt the spread of AIDS and start reversing its spread by 2015. It sets out a framework of specific targets for 2003, 2005, 2010 in a range of areas: prevention, care, support and treatment, AIDS orphans, science and research and AIDS in war zones. It will also cover HIV/AIDS and human rights, the social and economic impact of the epidemic, strengthening national capacities to combat the disease, and international funding and co-operation to address the epidemic's challenges.

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