HIV in SA
Aug 7th 2007, 9:40 pm
#1
BE Forum Addict
Thread Starter
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 1,424
HIV in SA
Was reading this today and had some questions as I am not a microbiological scientist specialising in HIV/Tubercolosis.
(An ask the audience rather than phone a friend)
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_A...160362,00.html
The questions that arose were :
that there must be more than 300,000 people getting ARV's at this point?
Hell, there has to be more HIV pos patients than that??
I know there were threats to disregard patent rights with Smith Kline French
which led to the rate the SA govt is currently paying for meds (a year to go??) and this article refers to "Now!New Improved" ARV's and the price's to pay, can the SA Govt actually disregard Patent rights and produce the stuff themselves?
This can only come from Tax revenue , if we are closer to Botswana's 34%
and Bara's 33% of all pregnant women (ergo their infecting partners) being HIV pos is a national indice, where's the money ?honey??
Bill Gates offered and was turned down when he wanted to see accounting.
Any thoughts??
(An ask the audience rather than phone a friend)
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_A...160362,00.html
The questions that arose were :
that there must be more than 300,000 people getting ARV's at this point?
Hell, there has to be more HIV pos patients than that??
I know there were threats to disregard patent rights with Smith Kline French
which led to the rate the SA govt is currently paying for meds (a year to go??) and this article refers to "Now!New Improved" ARV's and the price's to pay, can the SA Govt actually disregard Patent rights and produce the stuff themselves?
This can only come from Tax revenue , if we are closer to Botswana's 34%
and Bara's 33% of all pregnant women (ergo their infecting partners) being HIV pos is a national indice, where's the money ?honey??
Bill Gates offered and was turned down when he wanted to see accounting.
Any thoughts??
Aug 8th 2007, 9:31 am
#2
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 1,881
Re: HIV in SA
Was reading this today and had some questions as I am not a microbiological scientist specialising in HIV/Tubercolosis.
(An ask the audience rather than phone a friend)
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_A...160362,00.html
The questions that arose were :
that there must be more than 300,000 people getting ARV's at this point?
Hell, there has to be more HIV pos patients than that??
I know there were threats to disregard patent rights with Smith Kline French
which led to the rate the SA govt is currently paying for meds (a year to go??) and this article refers to "Now!New Improved" ARV's and the price's to pay, can the SA Govt actually disregard Patent rights and produce the stuff themselves?
This can only come from Tax revenue , if we are closer to Botswana's 34%
and Bara's 33% of all pregnant women (ergo their infecting partners) being HIV pos is a national indice, where's the money ?honey??
Bill Gates offered and was turned down when he wanted to see accounting.
Any thoughts??
(An ask the audience rather than phone a friend)
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_A...160362,00.html
The questions that arose were :
that there must be more than 300,000 people getting ARV's at this point?
Hell, there has to be more HIV pos patients than that??
I know there were threats to disregard patent rights with Smith Kline French
which led to the rate the SA govt is currently paying for meds (a year to go??) and this article refers to "Now!New Improved" ARV's and the price's to pay, can the SA Govt actually disregard Patent rights and produce the stuff themselves?
This can only come from Tax revenue , if we are closer to Botswana's 34%
and Bara's 33% of all pregnant women (ergo their infecting partners) being HIV pos is a national indice, where's the money ?honey??
Bill Gates offered and was turned down when he wanted to see accounting.
Any thoughts??
Not everyone who is hiv positive gets ARV drugs. I believe five or six million South Africans are thought to be hiv positive. Normally the drugs are only given at a certain point in the progression of the syndrome.
Even so, I doubt all that need them are getting the drugs. A couple of years ago, this was all ascribed to lack of money and the rapaciousness of the drug companies (and the white honkeys who run them). Now, enough drugs are available for free, or almost free, with aid grants available too. And still South Africa's Aids treatment programme is a mess. Little surprise, when Mbeki, Manto and their cohorts have spent so long in Aids denialism, and in undermining public health treatment, and in favouring absurd 'traditional' cures on the grounds that they are 'African'.
Pablo
Aug 8th 2007, 10:38 am
#3
Forum Regular
Joined: Apr 2007
Location: Cape Town
Posts: 209
Re: HIV in SA
Wow. Where to begin?
Well - the last offical figures verified by the UN are from the end of 2005. 18.8% of South Africans are HIV+, which is somewhere around 7 million. In pure numbers, that's second only to India - a mantel they took from SA in early 2006.
The 33% figure you quote is for a small, "high risk" group and not representative of the country.
Pablo is right that patients only generally require ARVs when their condition worsens. Usually, this is when the CD4 cell count drops below 400. Actually, the stats are pretty good for this - foreign NGOs report that up to 90% of the patients needing ARVs can get them. Although the TAC dispute this. But I won't mention "agendas" here.
The new ARVs are necessarily expensive - I will defend pharmaceutical companies on drug pricing - the investment that they must put into discovering new drugs is massive and they are businesses, not charities.
Could SA be making their own ARVs - well, they do, but the patents on the new drugs - which are the ones that work - prevent the latest ARVs being made generically.
SA spends more public money on HIV/AIDS than any other country on the planet $446.55 million in 2005, up from $79.5m in 2001.
As for the research into "traditional" medicines. SA aren't the only ones proactively investigating these "absurd"
cures - you'll find that most of the big drug companies are right there too. It's right that SA looks into these things to prevent the situation that they find themselves in now - whereby the new drugs are financially out of reach - occurring again.
I don't know about your Bill Gates allegation, but his (and his wife's) foundation supports a lot of work being done with TB and HIV in SA.
Plus points:
-Infection rates are (generally) stabilising.
-Manto is generally nothing more than a voice now - widely accepted that decisions in the DoH are being made by... shall we say "better informed" ... ? individuals.
Bad points:
-More could be done to prevent AIDS (but that could apply anywhere in the world).
-Rates increasing in homosexual community.
-Access to ARVs for neonatals is shameful.
Well - the last offical figures verified by the UN are from the end of 2005. 18.8% of South Africans are HIV+, which is somewhere around 7 million. In pure numbers, that's second only to India - a mantel they took from SA in early 2006.
The 33% figure you quote is for a small, "high risk" group and not representative of the country.
Pablo is right that patients only generally require ARVs when their condition worsens. Usually, this is when the CD4 cell count drops below 400. Actually, the stats are pretty good for this - foreign NGOs report that up to 90% of the patients needing ARVs can get them. Although the TAC dispute this. But I won't mention "agendas" here.
The new ARVs are necessarily expensive - I will defend pharmaceutical companies on drug pricing - the investment that they must put into discovering new drugs is massive and they are businesses, not charities.
Could SA be making their own ARVs - well, they do, but the patents on the new drugs - which are the ones that work - prevent the latest ARVs being made generically.
SA spends more public money on HIV/AIDS than any other country on the planet $446.55 million in 2005, up from $79.5m in 2001.
As for the research into "traditional" medicines. SA aren't the only ones proactively investigating these "absurd"
cures - you'll find that most of the big drug companies are right there too. It's right that SA looks into these things to prevent the situation that they find themselves in now - whereby the new drugs are financially out of reach - occurring again.I don't know about your Bill Gates allegation, but his (and his wife's) foundation supports a lot of work being done with TB and HIV in SA.
Plus points:
-Infection rates are (generally) stabilising.
-Manto is generally nothing more than a voice now - widely accepted that decisions in the DoH are being made by... shall we say "better informed" ... ? individuals.
Bad points:
-More could be done to prevent AIDS (but that could apply anywhere in the world).
-Rates increasing in homosexual community.
-Access to ARVs for neonatals is shameful.
Aug 8th 2007, 11:15 am
#4
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 1,881
Re: HIV in SA
My objection to the South African government's enthusiasm for and publicising of traditional so-called cures is that its motivation is not scientific but ideological.
Yes, of course drug researchers investigate the properties of plants, roots, barks, and much else that occurs naturally. Most modern drugs have come about that way. But this is something else entirely.
Furthermore, traditional African medicine, as it is called, is not just a question of herbal cures, carrot juice, or whatever. It involves sangomas, magic, muti, throwing of bones, witchcraft, child rape, and much else.
In view of the fact that promotion of traditional African medicine was central to Mbeki's Aids denialism (and the resultant avoidable goddam holocaust) one would think that the SA government would have the sense, now, to shut up about traditional cures. They know perfectly well that there are many uneducated Africans who will interpret their words the wrong way. But they just can't let the denialist riff go, even now. They make mealy-mouthed half-retractions, but they are too stubborn to admit they were wrong.
And the whole approach dovetails with the silly "Africanism" that has been the undoing of so much of post-independence Africa. Sadly, a lot of the gormless theory for this Africanism comes from blacks in the United States, and it is readily adopted by Africa's leaders.
Pablo
Yes, of course drug researchers investigate the properties of plants, roots, barks, and much else that occurs naturally. Most modern drugs have come about that way. But this is something else entirely.
Furthermore, traditional African medicine, as it is called, is not just a question of herbal cures, carrot juice, or whatever. It involves sangomas, magic, muti, throwing of bones, witchcraft, child rape, and much else.
In view of the fact that promotion of traditional African medicine was central to Mbeki's Aids denialism (and the resultant avoidable goddam holocaust) one would think that the SA government would have the sense, now, to shut up about traditional cures. They know perfectly well that there are many uneducated Africans who will interpret their words the wrong way. But they just can't let the denialist riff go, even now. They make mealy-mouthed half-retractions, but they are too stubborn to admit they were wrong.
And the whole approach dovetails with the silly "Africanism" that has been the undoing of so much of post-independence Africa. Sadly, a lot of the gormless theory for this Africanism comes from blacks in the United States, and it is readily adopted by Africa's leaders.
Pablo
Aug 8th 2007, 10:59 pm
#5
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 6,669
Re: HIV in SA
My objection to the South African government's enthusiasm for and publicising of traditional so-called cures is that its motivation is not scientific but ideological.
Yes, of course drug researchers investigate the properties of plants, roots, barks, and much else that occurs naturally. Most modern drugs have come about that way. But this is something else entirely.
Furthermore, traditional African medicine, as it is called, is not just a question of herbal cures, carrot juice, or whatever. It involves sangomas, magic, muti, throwing of bones, witchcraft, child rape, and much else.
In view of the fact that promotion of traditional African medicine was central to Mbeki's Aids denialism (and the resultant avoidable goddam holocaust) one would think that the SA government would have the sense, now, to shut up about traditional cures. They know perfectly well that there are many uneducated Africans who will interpret their words the wrong way. But they just can't let the denialist riff go, even now. They make mealy-mouthed half-retractions, but they are too stubborn to admit they were wrong.
And the whole approach dovetails with the silly "Africanism" that has been the undoing of so much of post-independence Africa. Sadly, a lot of the gormless theory for this Africanism comes from blacks in the United States, and it is readily adopted by Africa's leaders.
Pablo
Yes, of course drug researchers investigate the properties of plants, roots, barks, and much else that occurs naturally. Most modern drugs have come about that way. But this is something else entirely.
Furthermore, traditional African medicine, as it is called, is not just a question of herbal cures, carrot juice, or whatever. It involves sangomas, magic, muti, throwing of bones, witchcraft, child rape, and much else.
In view of the fact that promotion of traditional African medicine was central to Mbeki's Aids denialism (and the resultant avoidable goddam holocaust) one would think that the SA government would have the sense, now, to shut up about traditional cures. They know perfectly well that there are many uneducated Africans who will interpret their words the wrong way. But they just can't let the denialist riff go, even now. They make mealy-mouthed half-retractions, but they are too stubborn to admit they were wrong.
And the whole approach dovetails with the silly "Africanism" that has been the undoing of so much of post-independence Africa. Sadly, a lot of the gormless theory for this Africanism comes from blacks in the United States, and it is readily adopted by Africa's leaders.
Pablo
Something the western world is not aware of is it? Involves cutting the organs out whilst the child is still alive in order for it to have the maximum 'power'.
Aug 9th 2007, 1:34 am
#10
Account Closed
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 22,220
Re: HIV in SA
(Cue the piss takers)
Aug 9th 2007, 2:54 am
#15
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 6,669
Re: HIV in SA
Or the fact that muti rings are being constantly exposed in other African countries all the time, involving street/homeless children?