Thailand, which recently began producing a low-cost, single-pill, anti-HIV ”drug cocktail” has offered to transfer its Aids-fighting drug technology to developing nations, including South Africa.
South Africa, together with Zimbabwe, Uganda and Ghana, has already contacted Thailand about the drug cocktail and will be the first four countries to benefit, Thongchai Thaweechachat, director of Thailand’s Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, said on Wednesday.
”We’ve already signed a memorandum of understanding with Zimbabwe. With the rest, the agreements are starting to take shape,” he said. He said details would be discussed in coming months.
Thongchai said Thailand will assist the four nations in producing the drug GPO-Vir, a combination of nevirapine, stavudine and lamivudine. Such combinations are known as ”drug cocktails”, which are common for treating people who have HIV.
The three are antiretroviral drugs, which mean they slow down the replication of HIV. The drugs don’t cure Aids but control the disease. If taken regularly, they reduce the damage the virus can do to the body and improve a patient’s health and quality of life.
Thailand is only the second country after India to make this particular cocktail, a combination of three drugs originally produced by three Western pharmaceutical companies. They are not combined in the same way in Western countries because of patent complications.
The three companies do not hold any patents on the drugs in Thailand, which means they can be produced here without international legal problems.
According to official estimates, there are nearly 700 000 HIV-infected people in Thailand – 10% of them with full-blown Aids. GPO-Vir sells for about one-quarter of what the drugs would cost if purchased separately from their licensed manufacturers.
Thai Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan earlier this week declared at the World Hygiene Association conference in Geneva, Switzerland, that Thailand was ready to assist any developing nations in need of affordable drugs to fight Aids. – Sapa-AP