July11-2

News (Updated July 10, 2011)

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Millions will die if India stops AIDS drugs - U.N.

Tue, Jul 5 2011 By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Millions of people dependent on life-saving generic drugs to treat HIV/AIDS will die if India stops producing cheap drugs for the disease due to its trade deal with the European Union, the head of UNAIDS warned on Tuesday.

The EU and India are currently negotiating a free-trade agreement, which campaigners say will restrict India 's ability to produce anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, preventing the world's poor from accessing cheap drugs for their treatment.

"India should resist removing any flexibility because any trade agreement which could lead to India not being able to produce will be terrible for the rest of the world," said Michel Sidibe, executive director for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

"Millions of people will die if India cannot produce and Africa will be the most affected. For me, it is an issue of life or death," he told Reuters in an interview, adding that about 86 percent of people on treatment were taking drugs made in India .

The EU-India trade deal includes measures that could delay or restrict competition from generic medicines by extending patent terms, requiring data exclusivity and tightening border enforcement rules.

Such moves could drive up prices for India's anti-retroviral treatments, limit dosage options and delay access to newer and better drugs, said a U.N. report in September last year.

REVERSING GAINS MADE

Thirty years after the HIV/AIDS virus was first discovered, experts say while substantial progress has been made by the global community in stemming it, only a fraction of those living with the illness are on medication.

At a high level U.N. meeting last month, nations agreed on a set of ambitious targets to rid the world of disease, including scaling up the provision of generics to reach 15 million patients from six million by 2015.

The trade deal, Sidibe said, would reverse many of the gains made in improving the lives of the world's poor.

"We have been fighting for so long to make sure that poor people could have access to treatment," he said. "For me, it will be the beginning of reversing all the gains we made on social justice and redistribution of opportunity."

Sidibe, a Mali national, said African leaders were asking India to really pay serious attention to any trade agreement which would block them to produce quality generic drugs for very poor people.

"It is not a rich pocket of people in the developed world who will be deprived of drugs, it will be the most needy, the most poor."

(Editing by Yoko Nishikawa)

India says EU deal won't hit AIDS drugs supply - UN

Thu Jul 7, 2011

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI, July 7 (Reuters) - India has promised not to link a proposed trade deal with the European Union with limiting its production of generic HIV/AIDS drugs, the United Nations said on Thursday, giving hope to millions of infected patients but underlining the hurdles for the controversial pact.

The EU and India began negotiations in 2007 on a free-trade agreement which could generate two-way trade annually worth about $134 billion. But campaigners, including the U.N., have voiced concerns over how it could block India 's ability to produce anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs and prevent the world's poor from accessing cheaper treatment.

"The Government of India reaffirms its full commitment to ensure that quality generic medicines, including anti-retroviral drugs, are seamlessly available, and to make them available to all countries," India's Commerce Minister Anand Sharma was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

" India will also use the flexibilities allowed under (the copyright pact) TRIPS, including the use of compulsory licensing, to ensure that people living with HIV have access to all life-saving medicines."

Sharma made the comments in a meeting with UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe, who on Tuesday told Reuters in an interview that millions of people around the world would die if the deal blocked India from producing generic medicines.

An estimated 15 million people are eligible for ARVs in low-and middle-income countries, yet currently only about 6.6 million people have access to treatment. India 's pharmaceutical industry produces about 86 percent of the first-line cheap generic drugs, most of whom live in Africa .

Generic ARVs cost about $137 per person per year, a fraction of the price of patented ARVs used to treat the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, and are sold by western pharmaceutical firms, say experts.

LIFE SAVER

Two-way trade between India and its biggest trading partner, the EU -- touched $92.2 billion in 2009 in goods and services, but the figure could immediately rise to $134 billion (100 billion euros) a year and exceed $237 billion by 2015 if the free trade agreement goes through.

One of the key disagreements has been between western drug makers, who want greater protection of intellectual property rights, and companies, including those in India , which make cheaper copies -- a life-line for patients who cannot afford the more expensive medicines.

The talks on the pact have run into differences, such as over EU efforts to link it with sensitive topics such as India 's performance on climate change and reducing child labour, and over greater market access.

Complications have also arisen over the possibility of the proposed pact leading to easier immigration rules for Indians seeking to find work in Europe, particularly Britain which has capped immigration.

The current EU-India trade deal includes proposals that could delay or restrict competition from generic medicines by extending patent terms, requiring data exclusivity and tightening border enforcement rules.

Such moves could drive up prices for India's anti-retroviral treatments, limit dosage options and delay access to newer and better drugs, said a U.N. report in September last year.

Sidibe welcomed the promise made by India , adding emerging economies had a key role to play in stemming the disease which was first detected three decades ago.

" India , together with Brazil , South Africa , China and Russia , must forge an alliance with other high-income countries to ensure that no single person in the world dies because they could not afford to buy life-saving medicines or health care," said Sidibe in a statement. (Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Sanjeev Miglani)

U.S. cannot compel groups to oppose prostitution, court says

By Basil Katz

NEW YORK |Wed Jul 6, 2011

(Reuters) - Anti-HIV/AIDS groups cannot be required to formally denounce prostitution in order to receive U.S. funding, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday, finding that the policy was unconstitutional.

In a split 2-1 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that nonprofit groups could not be forced to adopt a policy opposing prostitution in order to receive funding from a 2003 spending bill passed by the U.S. Congress.

The appeals court upheld a lower court's injunction barring U.S. agencies from enforcing the requirement on the grounds that it violated their free speech.

"Congress's spending power, while broad, is not unlimited, and other constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds," U.S. Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote in a decision joined by Judge Rosemary Pooler. Judge Chester Straub dissented.

"The government may not place a condition on the receipt of a benefit or subsidy that infringes upon the recipient's constitutionally protected rights," the ruling said.

The funds in question come from the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, whose guidelines state that "no funds made available to carry out this Act . . . may be used to provide assistance to any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution."

In dissent, Straub called on the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case to "set us straight" on possible unconstitutional conditions on government funding.

The law was renewed in 2008 and slightly modified.

(Reporting by Basil Katz)

India PM hails success in battle against HIV

By Rupam Jain Nair (AFP) – 4 July, 2011

NEW DELHI — India 's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday hailed the country's success in slashing new HIV/AIDS infections by half in the past decade, but warned against complacency.

"Our HIV/AIDS programme can justifiably claim a measure of success," he told a conference in New Delhi discussing means to combat the disease.

But he added that new Ministry of Health figures estimating that 2.4 million Indians are still living with HIV means "there should be no room for complacency".

"With the introduction of antiretroviral treatment, HIV has become a chronic but manageable health condition," Singh said.

While Singh was praising government efforts to combat the virus, around 100 people living with HIV protested outside the ministry of health saying efforts were insufficient.

Despite the significant drop in fresh cases, India still has the highest number of people living with HIV after South Africa and Nigeria .

So-called "first-line" antiretroviral therapy (ART) -- a cocktail of drugs to slow the effects of the virus on the body's immune system -- has been widely available and free of charge in India 's public health system since 2004.

More expensive "second-line" ART is also free, although access to it is limited to just a few centres across the country.

" India 's testing and treatment for HIV/AIDS have increased their reach," Singh said.

Now, Indian health workers are focusing on prevention of transmission from infected pregnant women to their newborn children, making it a "priority area," Singh said.

India 's AIDS control programme has reduced new HIV/AIDS infections by 50 percent in the last 10 years and mortality rates amongst those infected with HIV have also fallen, Singh noted.

The health ministry said the number of new HIV infections in India has fallen to to 120,000 annually from 270,000 reported in 2000.

Indian pharmaceutical companies have helped to drive down the cost of life-saving generic drugs to treat people with HIV in India and other developing countries.

Singh said one of India 's key strategies has been to scale up preventive education campaigns among high-risk groups such as sex workers.

Other high risk groups include men having sex with men, India 's health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

"We can track female sex workers but it is almost impossible to identify men having sex with men. We need to take the message to them to further stabilise the epidemic," Azad said separately at the conference.

Unprotected sex, particularly between sex workers, their clients and partners, is the main factor behind the spread of the disease, UNAIDS says.

Contaminated needles also play a key role in spreading the virus in India 's northeastern regions, the UN agency says.

Singh said there should be no discrimination in India against people living with HIV, condemning frequent denial of school admission to children with the virus.

"We must see that there is no social ostracisation," he said.

He also urged the global community not to slacken in its fight against what he called one of the "biggest health challenges confronting humanity."

Indian gay gaffe spotlights changing attitudes

By Ammu Kannampilly (AFP) – 7 July, 2011

NEW DELHI — The Indian gay community has made great strides in gaining acceptance in recent years, but a minister's description of homosexuality as "unnatural" this week shows that prejudices still run deep.

Almost two years to the day after a landmark Delhi High Court ruling decriminalised homosexuality, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad shocked gay rights activists Tuesday with his remarks at an HIV/AIDS conference.

Homosexuality was "unnatural and not good for India " and "a disease which has come from other countries", he was quoted as saying, though he later said he did not consider being gay a disease.

The condemnation from India 's gay activists was quick and forthright, reflecting the growing confidence of a minority movement that is no longer scared of asserting its rights.

Other signs of the community's increasing visibility include the sale of same-sex Valentine's Day cards and gay magazines, as well as the Bollywood blockbuster "Dostana", in which a mother welcomes her son's supposed boyfriend into her home.

The country's first gay pride store was launched in an upmarket suburb of Mumbai in December 2009.

But even on the streets of central New Delhi , one of the most liberal parts of India , many wondered why the comments by Azad, a Muslim from the violence-wracked region of Kashmir , had caused such a fuss in the media.

"Just because India is democratic doesn't mean anything goes. Some things are against nature and you can't change nature's laws," Shafi Billo, a 37-year-old travel entrepreneur, told AFP.

He said he was "in total agreement" with the minister, a member of the ruling Congress party and holder of a masters degree in zoology.

In a blog published Tuesday on the website of Indian media giant Zee News, journalist Deepak Nagpal wrote a column backing Azad's contention that homosexuality was unnatural.

"Men were never supposed to have sex with men (or for that matter, woman having sex with another woman) -- the structure of our body and incapability of two men (or women) to reproduce is ample proof of that," he wrote.

Many Indians, particularly in rural areas, simply regard homosexuality as a mental illness, or something shameful to be ignored.

The country has no high-profile figures who are openly gay or lesbian in sport, politics, or entertainment.

Prior to the High Court ruling, homosexuality was illegal in India under a 150-year-old British colonial law that banned "carnal intercourse against the order of nature". Conviction carried a fine and maximum 10-year jail sentence.

Gay rights activist Nitin Karani told AFP that "the ruling helped to start a conversation about gay rights in India , but it's still not easy to be gay here."

He added: "Attitudes haven't changed much, you deal with a lot of ridicule, gossip, and irrational ignorance."

A few years ago he dated someone who eventually "caved in to his family and got married to a woman", he said

But Parmesh Shahani, author of "Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)longing in Contemporary India", told AFP that the criticism of Azad's comments was a sign of progress.

"What's noteworthy is that the criticism has come from civil society at large, not just from gay people," Shahani said.

" India is a historically tolerant and plural society, and people are realising that if we have global aspirations, we need to make a choice not to discriminate between people."

Business school graduate Aparna Sharma, 21, called the minister's comments "completely wrong," and added "people should be able to love whomever they want."

"There's a long way to go though before Indian society accepts homosexuality. There are so many conservative people here," she told AFP.

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