A NEW deal between pharmaceutical companies and the South African government that has halved the cost of drugs used to contain the HIV virus means that hundreds of thousands of infected people currently not on treatment can access it.
Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said in Pretoria yesterday that the latest tender for the government’s roll-out of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs was 53 per cent cheaper than the one secured two years ago, even though the same companies are involved in the process this time round.
“South Africa can now afford to treat twice as many people with the same amount of money. It is notable these tender price reductions have been achieved through the same suppliers that are contracted in the current tender,” he told reporters in Pretoria.
He said the new deal meant that instead of paying the 8.8 billion rand (€972 million) for ARVs – the cost of the rollout last time – the government would only pay 4.8 billion rand over the next two years, starting January 2011.
Since Jacob Zuma became South African president in 2008, there has been a significant drive to increase the number of people being tested for HIV and Aids, and treated for the disease with ARV drugs. During World Aids Day on December 1st, Mr Motsoaledi said that over the previous eight months, nearly 4.5 million people had been tested for the virus during a massive nationwide Know Your Status campaign launched by Mr Zuma in April.
Of these, 800,000 people were found to be infected with HIV.
Currently, the estimated number of South Africans receiving state-sponsored ARV drugs stands at nearly one million.
When asked why the government had been able to negotiate such a vastly improved price with the suppliers this time round, Mr Motsoaledi said it might have “made a mistake” during the previous tender process. “My message to pharmaceuticals is that they are in a sector that is very sensitive. They mustn’t fish from our troubled waters,” he said.
Until this deal was announced, South Africa, which has one of the largest communities of HIV infected people in the world, was also paying a higher price for ARV drugs than most other countries despite the economies of scale.
The Treatment Action Campaign, a pressure group for people infected with HIV, commended the government but it added that concerns still remained.
Spokesman Jonathan Berger said they were worried no provisions had been made for price reductions in the event that an active pharmaceutical ingredient’s price declined.