Protesters Call For More Help in Battling AIDS Epidemic in Africa
ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN ANCHOR: Health experts from around the world gathered in South Africa this week for the 13th International Conference on AIDS. The explosive spread of HIV on the African continent has left 35 percent of the population, between 5 and 49, infected. The head of South Africa's AIDS program is urging businesses to join in the fight against the disease. One drug company has offered to help, but trade unions say that offer is not what it seems. The South African Broadcasting Corporation reports.</s>MIA MALAN, SABC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These people call Pfizer AIDS profiteers. It is all about this drug, which Pfizer offered them for free, but now it seems the offer only stands for two and a half years, until Pfizer's patent expires, and only for people suffering from AIDS-related brain infections.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We only knew from our own sources that they are profiting off of this drug and we also want to know if they are reducing the drug price, the fluconazole price for people who are suffering from thrush.</s>MALAN: Almost all South African unions support these demands and they threaten industrial action.</s>JACQUELINE MPLOLOKENG, CONGRESS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE UNIONS: Most of our members are not in that, medical AIDS consumers know that they are very expensive, so now if this medicine can be a help -- access on this medicine from the clinics, then they will be able to afford to get this medicine.</s>MALAN: The Treatment Action Campaign calls this the beginning of the role. (on camera): Many pickets like this are expected at the International AIDS Conference in Durban in July. The TAC is planning to step up its efforts internationally, asking for all African countries to have access to their demands. (voice-over): The picketers weren't allowed past this point. A security official was told to hand out old press releases, which were also used at pickets on April 20. Mia Malan at the SABC in Johannesburg, for CNN WORLD REPORT.</s>DEBRA DAUGHERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Now, for more details on the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, we are joined live now by Mia Malan. Mia, in the report we just saw, you spoke with the protesters calling on the pharmaceutical companies to lower the prices of drugs that treat diseases associated with HIV. What did the companies have to say?</s>MALAN: Well, the companies understand that it's a social responsibility, although it's also made very clear that they are also profit-making organizations. But I don't think the call of drugs is so much a call of, give us everything for free, it is very much a call of social responsibility in the sense that everyone is responsible for this epidemic. If you're a food company, they would give away free food to see that people's immune systems are boosted. If you're a drug company, you lower your prices. And I think especially in South Africa, the case is that drugs are known as to be highly overpriced and people especially feel that within the conflicts and the drasticness (ph) of this epidemic it is, prices can be lowered.</s>DAUGHERTY: Did this week's conference yield solutions to the spread of AIDS?</s>MALAN: Well, President Mbeki in his opening speech did say that poverty plays a big role in the spread of AIDS. I think he received a lot of criticism for not addressing many other issues. But I think when you look at the context of AIDS in Africa, poverty really plays a big role, the level of development of a country and the lack of resources also play a big role. If you just look at the sort of budgets of -- AIDS budgets of African countries, the budget of the United States alone is about 20 times as much or better of the entire developing world. So poverty definitely plays a role, but surely, the other issues around the</s>DAUGHERTY: And it has seen much attention paid to the treatment of HIV-related diseases. What about preventions?</s>MALAN: Well, prevention is definitely one of the main efforts and one of the main goals of all developing countries. I just think it is being done in a context which is pretty difficult. If you, for instance, look at a country like South Africa, we have many prevention campaigns, but it's done within a context of a country which has had to grapple with so many other issues being a country in a transition, that these issues aren't the sort of projects that will get the only attention. And also, if you look at a country, or countries in Africa where there is such a lack of infrastructure, it is very difficult often to -- if you have money -- to translate that money into concrete projects that will actually reach people, so I think that does play a big role.</s>DAUGHERTY: Mia, we only have 20 seconds left, just how serious is the AIDS epidemic where you are in South Africa?</s>MALAN: Well, in South Africa, it's on record by U.N. AIDS as the country having the most people in the world living with AIDS, 34.2 million people, and they almost have 2,000 new infections every single day, so in South Africa it is a major issue and it's a issue that requires a major intervention.</s>DAUGHERTY: Mia Malan from South Africa's SABC, joining us by telephone from Durban.