Burundi signs up for UN HIV/AIDS drug plan

Burundi has become the seventh African nation to sign an agreement underthe Accelerating Access Initiative, set up by UNAIDS, the joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, and research-based pharmaceutical manufacturers (Marketletter April 16).

The country has secured an agreement with four of the five companies participating in the AAI - GlaxoSmith- Kline, Merck & Co, Boehringer Ingelheim and Bristol-Myers Squibb - under which it will receive antiretroviral drugs at heavily-discounted prices.

GSK announced that, as part of the deal, it is offering its Combivir (zidovudine plus lamivudine) at a price of $2 a day, which is a 90% reduction on the average world price and the same discount on the drug as it has offered the other countries participating in the AAI, namely Uganda, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Cameroon and Mali. The deal will allow Burundi a fourfold increase in the number of HIV/AIDS patients it treats in the next 12 months, the company added.