Probe call over S African govt AIDS drug claims

10 April 2001

South Africa's Democratic Alliance opposition wants the NationalAssembly to set up a multi-party committee to investigate denials by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, more than once in parliament, that drug companies had made any offers to negotiate discounts for AIDS drugs to the Department of Health.

In fact, several companies had made offers, "repeatedly, explicitly and in writing," says the SA Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, in answer to an affidavit brought by the Treatment Action Campaign as part of the SAPMA's case against the Medicines Control Act (Marketletters passim). In the SAPMA's answering affidavit, chief executive Miryenna Deeb names various initiatives by pharmaceutical companies, "inter alia by projects aimed at providing greater access to the medicines which they produce and which are useful in the treatment of HIV/AIDS."

More details of the SAPMA's answering affidavit will appear in next week's Marketletter. The industry's case against the Act is due to resume in the Pretoria High Court on April 18.

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