UN to meet on HIV drugs

Wednesday, 08 June 2011
Tan Yew Guan
The Phnom Penh Post

A Cambodian delegation headed by Bun Rany, the wife of the prime minister, will arrive at the United Nations General Assembly in New York today to negotiate a draft declaration on HIV/AIDS policy that has drawn sharp criticisms from NGOs in Cambodia.

NGOs fear the European Union will use the high-level UN meeting to advocate stronger intellectual property controls on the manufacture of generic copies of patented antiretroviral drugs, both through the UN’s ‘draft zero’ declaration and the its Free Trade Agreement negotiations with India.

The generic copies, 90 percent of which are estimated by experts to be manufactured in India, cost significantly less than the near identical branded originals, allowing some 40,000 people in the Kingdom living with HIV to access cheap, safe treatment.

92% Cambodians with HIV/AIDS receive treatment

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- More than 92 percent of the Cambodians living with HIV/AIDS have been provided with anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment in 2008, a 7 percent rise over 2007, national media said on Monday.

With this, Cambodia is coming closer to its objective of making ARV drugs available to nearly all who need them by 2010, Mean ChhiVun, director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STDs, was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily as saying.

"We now cover 92 percent. Our target is 97 percent in 2010. The universal access target is about 85 percent, but for Cambodia, we want to provide anti-retroviral treatment for all," he said.

The treatment was given free of charge last year to 31,989 patients, including 3,067 children, in 77 government-run health centers and partner organizations in Cambodia, he added.

According to official figures, around 100,000 Cambodians have died of HIV/AIDS since 1991 and some 120,000 now live with the disease.

The kingdom has brought its prevalence rate down to below 0.9 percent from the peak of 3.3 percent in 1997.