FRIDAY, 3:00PM:
THE Aids Law Project at the University of Witwatersrand (ALP) says it has been approached by patients who received supplies of the banned Aids drug Virodene from a Pretoria doctor.
In a press conference called to explain Thursday’s police raid on the team who created the controversial drug (see below), law project attorney Fatima Hassan said the doctor told the patients he had received Virodene patches direct from Virodene’s creators.
When the patients used the patches, they experienced shortness of breath, swelling of their throats, and “extreme burning sensations throughout their bodies”.
The ALP then reported both the doctor and the Virodene researcher to the Medical Control Council, who acted almost immediately in instigating the police raid. Council chairman Peter Folb said he had the names of doctors and pharmacists dispensing the banned drug, and would act against them.
The ALP has also called on Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma to investigate claims by Virodene researcher Olga Visser that Virodene is coming into South Africa from other African countries.
THURSDAY, 4:00PM:
Medicines Control Council officials on Wednesday raided the Pretoria office and home of ‘Virodene’ researcher Olga Visser for evidence that patients are still being treated with the controversial anti-Aids drug that Visser helped develop.
The medicines council placed a ban on the drug several months ago, after Visser and her colleagues asked the government for funding, claiming the drug was cheaper and better than any other Aids drug on the market. The researchers were accused of ignoring accepted research procedures and perhaps worse trying to leapfrog the fundraising process. The council then banned Virodene because it contains an industrial solvent, dimethylformamide, apparently toxic to humans.
Visser’s husband Zigi, manager of the ‘Cryopreservation Technologies’ which holds the Virodene P058 patent, said the raid was based on claims by a patient he had never heard of, and called it “a desperate attempt by the council, pharmaceutical companies and Aids activists who are trying to bury Virodene before the new health Bills come into effect.”