This is an archive of the Treatment Action Campaign's public documents from
December 1998 until October 2008. I created this website because the TAC's
website appears unmaintained and people were concerned that it
was becoming
increasingly hard to find important documents.
The menu items have
been slightly edited and a new stylesheet applied to the site. But none of the
documents have been edited, not even for minor errors. The text appears on this
site as obtained from the Internet Archive.
The period covered by
the archive encompassed the campaign for HIV medicines, the civil disobedience
campaigns, the Competition Commission complaints, the 2008 xenophobic violence
and the PMTCT, Khayelitsha health workers and Matthias Rath court cases.
To:Mr Barry Smith CEO, Pfizer South Africa
Fax:011 884 8409
From:Associate Professor Leslie London, UCT
Contents: Reduction in the price of Fluconazole A public health priority
Dear Mr Smith
I would like to indicate my strongest support for the current call by the Treatment Action Campaign and others for a reduction in the costs of the drug Diflucan (fluconazole) produced by Pfizer.
From a public health perspective, the current AIDS epidemic presents one the biggest threats to the well-being of our country and our region. For that reason, attempts to address the AIDS epidemic are the responsibility of all sectors of society who have diverse but complementary roles to play. Treatment of the complications of HIV infection is part of the holistic public health approach needed to ameliorate the impact of AIDS and your drug, fluconazole, has been shown to be effective in the treatment of at least two of the complications of AIDS.
I therefore believe that Pfizer, as requested by TAC, could make a major contribution by lowering the costs of the drug, or waiving its patent to allow the production of a generic equivalent at a cost the country can afford.
I will be sharing this call with colleagues in the public health field who, I believe will share my views that the public benefits in this case are worthy of special consideration by the pharmaceutical industry.
Yours sincerely
Associate Professor Leslie London
cc. The Chairperson: Public Health Association of South Africa