Four years after AIDS drugs bill passed, first low-cost meds may head to Rwanda
- Four years after it was passed unanimously by Parliament, a bill allowing low-cost AIDS drugs to be exported to Africa may finally produce results.
Generic drug maker Apotex Inc. says it has been awarded a contract by the government of Rwanda to sell its three-in-one AIDS pill to that country, the final hurdle in the onerous process of making Canada's Access to Medicines Regime work.
A company spokesperson says the first drugs should start being shipped in the fall, as long as none of the companies that hold the patents on the drugs withdraw their permission in the interval.
The Jean Chretien Pledge to Africa Act, as the legislation was originally called, sailed through Parliament in May 2004, though it took another year for the bill to be given royal assent.
In the intervening years AIDS activists have been highly critical of the legislation, complaining it is so cumbersome not a single low-cost pill has yet been exported from Canada.
While Apotex spokesman Elie Betito calls the latest development positive news, he admits the company is unlikely to try to manoeuvre all the hurdles of the process again.
Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV-AIDS Legal Network, says the news that the act may finally produce results is bittersweet, because it has taken so long and because it's unclear whether the act will be used again.
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