wfn.org | Ndungane asks drug companies to put people before profits in AIDS pandemic

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Jan Nunley
Deputy Director
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2000-219

Ndungane asks drug companies to put people before profits in AIDS pandemic

by Jan Nunley

     (ENS) Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, Anglican primate of the 
Church in Southern Africa, appealed to multinational pharmaceutical companies to 
"bridge the gulf between human needs, scientific research and market forces" and 
provide affordable drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and related complications, 
including tuberculosis, in southern Africa.

     Ndungane was among 35 international delegates to the White House World AIDS 
Day Summit and representatives of faith-based communities who met with President 
Bill Clinton on December 1. The archbishop, John Ibekwe, president of the 
Nigerian Association of People Living with AIDS, and Vietnamese Buddhist 
theologian Thich Nhat Hanh were invited to address the gathering.

     Ndungane pointed out that HIV/AIDS has reduced the average life expectancy 
of South Africans from 62 years to 40 years and had a devastating effect on the 
region's ability to support itself economically. "Many households in my country 
are headed by children in their early teens--boys and girls about 13 years old, 
in a harsh urban environment, who have buried both parents and are bracing 
themselves for the death of their toddler siblings," Ndungane said. "In the six 
countries that make up Southern Africa up to a quarter of our practising doctors 
are expected to die within the next five years. In the rural areas our 
agricultural knowledge and management skills are being lost and the cultivation 
of labour-intensive crops is being abandoned due to AIDS related diseases.

     "This, against the backdrop of globalisation and the economic 
interdependence of the world's nations, is as good an argument as any for the 
developed world to find innovative solutions to making affordable medicines 
available to their poor counterparts…Yet I am assured that research in this arena 
is minimal, simply because there is no profit for the pharmaceutical companies to 
become involved," he said.

Four steps against AIDS

     Ndungane recommend four steps to combat HIV/AIDS in southern Africa. First, 
he said, nations must cooperate to break the cycle of poverty, through such 
measures as debt relief, and to re-channel money into health and education. He 
also called for a Millennium Vaccine Fund, to provide affordable medicine to the 
poor and the generation of care-giving capacity and skills within local 
communities for people with AIDS and AIDS orphans. It is as much about human 
support as medical assistance. Finally, he called for an "African Recovery 
Programme," similar to the Marshall Plan instituted in post-World War II Europe.

     More than 36 million people worldwide are now living with HIV/AIDS, 
according to U.N. statistics. Another 20 million have been killed by the disease 
around the globe. Africa is the most affected region, but Asia and Russia also 
face the possibility of an AIDS epidemic. This year's U.N. campaign is entitled 
"Men Make a Difference," targeting men and adolescent boys with the message that 
multiple sexual partners, sex without condoms and poor health care endangers 
their health and that of female partners. 

     World AIDS Day is the only international day of coordinated action against 
AIDS. It began at the World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programs for AIDS 
Prevention in January 1988. 

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of the Office of News and Information 
for the Episcopal Church.