********************************************************** SAATHII Electronic Newsletter HIV NEWS FROM INDIA Source: Reuters, The Times of India, The Financial Express and The Telegraph Posted on: 05/02/2008. COMPILED BY: Jacob Boopalan, and L. Ramakrishnan SAATHII Chennai Office. Note: this compilation contains news items about HIV/AIDS published in the Indian media, as well as articles relevant to HIV/AIDS in India published internationally. Articles in this and previous newsletters may also be accessed at http://www.saathii.org/orc/elibrary =============================================================== 1. Global Fund to review India projects for fraud Reuters, February 01, 2008. http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-31719520080201 2. 'Unprotected sex OK for some with HIV' The Times of India, February 02, 2008. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthSci/Unprotected_sex_OK_for_some_with_HIV/articleshow/2749696.cms 3. Novartis wins Thai battle, setback for Indian firms The Financial Express, February 03, 2008. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Novartis-wins-Thai-battle--setback-for-Indian-firms/268596/ 4. French healing touch for AIDS orphans - Countess with charitable streak selects Manipur & Mizoram for project The Telegraph, February 03, 2008. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080204/jsp/northeast/story_8858458.jsp =============================================================== 1. Global Fund to review India projects for fraud Reuters, February 01, 2008. http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-31719520080201 NEW DELHI: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is reviewing its India operations after the World Bank said it found signs of widespread corruption in its own India projects, the Fund's regional head said on Friday. The Fund says it has no evidence right now that any of the more than $170 million it has handed to India since 2003 has been lost to fraud. But Taufiqur Rahman, the Fund's head of grants in South and West Asia, says an urgent, in-depth inquiry was vital in the light of the World Bank's report last month. That report found that, in some projects, close to 90 percent of contracts involving Bank funds in India showed signs of fraud. "It's important for us to take the findings of the World Bank seriously," Rahman told Reuters by telephone from the Fund's Geneva headquarters. "It's a review just to make sure, given the World Bank report, that our investments are protected. "I was surprised (by the report) because we didn't know the scale of it." But some development workers have told Reuters the report only confirmed their own experiences -- that blatant corruption continues to hinder India's efforts to prevent people dying from tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases. Rahman says the Fund has never seen evidence of fraud in its Indian operations, where it funds testing and treatment programmes. The worst he has heard is complaints that getting hold of promised funds can be slow. The World Bank earlier acted as an agent for Global Fund money, but the two institutions now work independently in India. Rahman hopes the review, which will be conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, will begin next week. "It's a priority for us," he said. "We'll move rapidly on this one ... If there's any hint of corruption the Global Fund comes down very hard." The Global Fund says it provides two-thirds of international funding to fight malaria and tuberculosis. India's government is examining the World Bank's report and says it will punish people who broke the law. It is the fourth report done by or for the Bank since 2005 to have found signs of corruption in India. Rahman was asked if he expected the Fund's review would uncover similar signs of fraud. "We don't want to get into a situation where we're making assumptions, that's not fair to the country," he said. =============================================================== 2. 'Unprotected sex OK for some with HIV' The Times of India, February 02, 2008. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthSci/Unprotected_sex_OK_for_some_with_HIV/articleshow/2749696.cms GENEVA: Swiss AIDS experts said on Thursday that some people with HIV who are on stable treatment can safely have unprotected sex with non-infected partners. The Swiss National AIDS Commission said patients who meet strict conditions, including successful antiretroviral treatment to suppress the virus and who do not have any other sexually transmitted diseases, do not pose a danger to others. The proposal, published this week in the Bulletin of Swiss Medicine, astonished leading AIDS researchers in Europe and North America who have long argued that safe sex with a condom is the single most effective way of preventing the spread of the disease — apart from abstinence. "Not only is (the Swiss proposal) dangerous, it's misleading and it is not considering the implications of the biological facts involved with HIV transmission," said Jay Levy, director of the Laboratory for Tumor and AIDS Virus Research at the University of California in San Francisco. The Swiss scientists took as their starting point a 1999 study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which showed that transmission depends strongly on the viral load in the blood. The Swiss said other studies had also found that patients on regular anti-AIDS treatment did not pass on the virus, and that HIV could not be detected in their genital fluids. "The most compelling evidence is the absence of any documented transmission from a patient on antiretroviral therapy," said Pietro Vernazza, head of infectious diseases at the cantonal hospital of St Gallen in eastern Switzerland and one of the authors of the report. "Let's be clear, the decision has to remain with the HIV-negative partner," he said. The studies cited by the Swiss commission did not themselves definitively conclude whether people with HIV and on antiretroviral treatment could safely have unprotected sex without passing on the virus. In practice the recommendation would affect about a third of HIV patients in Switzerland, Vernazza said, but added that patients and their partners would benefit from greatly increased quality of life, such as being able to have children without fear of passing on the virus. Levy said there was no safe way of knowing whether a patient with HIV who has no detectable virus in the blood will not transmit the virus. More research into the links between viral load in the blood and the presence of the virus in genital fluid was needed, he said. The World Health Organization said Switzerland would be the first country in the world to try this approach. =============================================================== 3. Novartis wins Thai battle, setback for Indian firms The Financial Express, February 03, 2008. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Novartis-wins-Thai-battle--setback-for-Indian-firms/268596/ Mumbai: Even as the patent row between Indian generic firms and Novartis over anti-cancer drug Glivec (imatinib mesylate) is still raging on, the Swiss pharmaceutical major has won a government decision in its favour in Thailand for the drug. The Thai government has decided not to invoke a compulsory licence (CL) for imatinb, denying Indian Companies an opportunity to sell the drug in that country at rates a tenth lower than the Swiss company’s drug prices globally. The Thai government, on January 31, decided in favour of Novartis, after the drug major agreed to provide free Glivec to patients having a household income of less than 1.7 million baht ($51,515) a year. The patented version of imatinib costs 3,600 Thai baht ($109) for a 400-mg pill. Usually a patient requires a pill a day, which costs about 1.31 million baht ($39,800) a year, while the generic versions from India will cost 150 baht ($4.50) a pill. Veenat, Natco Pharma’s cheaper version of imatinib, costs about Rs 10,000 per month. Last year, Pune-based Emcure Pharma had bagged the order for supplying clopidogrel, the generic version of cardiac drug Plavix, following the government’s decision to invoke CL. Experts are of the view that this strategy of MNCs will hit Indian firms badly. An intellectual property expert said, “The case in Thailand is more like differential pricing of the drug. People who cannot afford the drug can get it cheaper or free of cost, while those who can afford will get it at the market price. This will not particularly hurt Novartis, as the drug patent is still enforced and not overridden by compulsory licence.” If research based-Companies start agreeing with differential pricing, it’s likely that the CL will not be invoked. And no generic company will want to sell cheaper drugs for free, as it wants to recover at least a part of manufacturing and shipping costs. Generic players, thus, stood to lose the game in such cases, he added. It is learnt that the Thai government has decided to issue a CL for three more cancer drugs: docetaxel for treating lungs and breast cancer, which is marketed by Sanofi-Aventis as Taxotere; letrozole for breast cancer and marketed by Novartis as Femara; and erlotinib for lungs cancer and marketed by Roche as Tarceva. =============================================================== 4. French healing touch for AIDS orphans - Countess with charitable streak selects Manipur & Mizoram for project The Telegraph, February 03, 2008. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080204/jsp/northeast/story_8858458.jsp Silchar: French Countess Albina du Boisrouvray could not save her pilot son from dying young. But since 1990, her organisation — named after her son Francois-Xavier Bagnoud — has played saviour to hundreds of children orphaned by war, civil strive and AIDS. Manipur and Mizoram, where the rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence is among the highest in the country, are the next big challenges for Boisrouvray. The Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud has been active in India since the day it was set up — Goa was the first stop — but this is the first time that the NGO is coming to the Northeast. Boisrouvray’s organisation intends to set up an AIDS Village each in the two states exclusively for children orphaned by the killer disease. Sources in the Mizoram health directorate in Aizawl said the government was glad the NGO had chosen the state for its project. The Manipur government too has positive about the NGO’s proposal. The sites for the planned orphan shelters will be finalised soon in consultation with the state governments, a representative of the NGO said. Boisrouvray came to the country recently as part of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s delegation. Her organisation’s India budget for this year alone is estimated to be $1.3 million. The NGO first tried out the AIDS Village concept in Uganda. Each house in such a village has (foster) parents, maybe grandparents and some orphans they take in with the organisation’s help. This gradually extends into a model village. The NGO helps start income-generating activities and initiates education programmes for the orphaned children. As in other parts of the world, the Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud will provide healthcare support and access to basic needs for the first three years. In over 80 per cent of the cases, the beneficiaries are able to fend for themselves by the fourth year. About 80 families will look after, on an average, five orphans each in the AIDS Villages planned in the Northeast. A Mizoram official said the scheme should take off by the beginning of the next fiscal. Mizoram has recorded about 1,100 cases of full-blown AIDS. An estimated 50 of these people have died. Boisrouvray’s organisation is looking at tie-ups with some NGOs working in the field of healthcare in Manipur and Mizoram to expand its reach. The Frenchwoman is not only a philanthropist, but also a filmmaker /producer and a former journalist. She founded Libre, a literary magazine that published the works of Latin-American writers. =============================================================== Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in the above articles are those of the respective newspapers, not those of SAATHII.