Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 49 015 279 at 10.53am on Thursday October 17 2002.
The head of Africa Helps Africa (AHA), a humanitarian organisation in Senegal, was dismissed this week after the country’s president accused him of committing ”extremely serious errors”.
Latif Gueye is accused by President Abdoulaye Wade of trafficking Aids drugs that were meant for Africa, but were redirected to Europe to be sold at a higher price. AHA is an intergovernmental organisation that Wade founded in 1996. It has 51 member countries.
Some of the drugs were found in Germany and The Netherlands. Gueye denied any involvement in trafficking. ”AHA had a surplus of anti-retroviral drugs and had tried to exchange them for other medicine and equipment,” he said.
Generic nevirapine: Aspen Pharmacare in Port Elizabeth signed a deal with Boehringer Ingeleheim this week granting Aspen an exclusive voluntary licence to manufacture a generic version of nevirapine. Boehringer holds the patent on nevirapine.
The deal stipulates that the generic drug can only be sold to the state or to non-profit organisations. Aspen may also distribute the generic nevirapine in 13 other Southern African Development Community countries.
The generic drug will probably only be on the market in June next year because it must first be registered with the Medicines Control Council. Aspen said the generic would be competitively priced.
Source: Sapa-AP, Associated Press