Drug companies could influence the fight against the AIDS epidemic by reducing the cost of HIV drugs in poor countries to zero, writes Donald Berwick in this week's BMJ.
He argues that modern drugs can improve the lives of people with HIV by years, even decades, yet their high costs are often used as an excuse for poor countries not to develop effective infrastructures for the care of patients.
Richard Sykes, chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, says that it is easy - although misguided - to assume that cost is the main barrier to people in poor countries having greater access to effective drugs. His company offers its medicines to poor countries at prices up to 90% lower than those charged in rich countries, yet he has not seen a considerable uptake in the use of these medicines.
The international community's lack of political will to provide drugs to people with HIV and AIDS is a greater danger than the South African President's belief that poverty is the cause of AIDS, argues Zackie Achmat of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign.
He believes that a global health fund will be a start in providing treatment, supporting HIV prevention efforts, demonstrating political commitment, and reaffirming the principle that everyone has the rights to life, freedom, dignity, and equality.