TWO JOINT NGO STATEMENTS - 31 August 2001 Africa Action, Treatment Action Campaign, Physicians for Human Rights, Student Global AIDS Campaign, and Oxfam GB Urge Greater Focus on AIDS Crisis at World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) August 30, 2001 (Durban, South Africa) - As more than 10,000 NGO representatives, youth activists and government officials from around the world gather in Durban to discuss racism and related issues, Africa Action, Treatment Action Campaign, Physicians for Human Rights, Student Global AIDS Campaign and Oxfam GB strongly urge delegates to address the most critical manifestation of international racism - the failure of the international community to respond to the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Africa has already lost 17 million people to AIDS, and more than 25 million are currently infected with HIV. In Kwa-Zulu Natal, the province where Durban is situated, the infection rate is 37%. AIDS has become the black plague. While it is a disease that knows no borders, and does not discriminate by race, at present it is mainly killing black people and people of color. Vulnerability is linked to poverty, poverty to race, and race to centuries-old history of the slave trade and colonialism. AIDS points to more fundamental global inequalities than those involving a single disease, illuminating a system of global injustice, and global medical apartheid. It is the devaluation of black life that has enabled the world to turn its eyes away from this global crisis. The rich countries of the North have the technology and resources to prevent millions of unnecessary deaths, and their failure to respond is a function of racism. Africa Action, Treatment Action Campaign, Physicians for Human Rights, Student Global AIDS Campaign, and Oxfam GB urge delegates to address the key features of global apartheid and particularly the AIDS pandemic. We call upon the richest countries of the world to contribute at least $10 billion to the UN Global Health Fund to fund a comprehensive program of prevention, treatment and community support to fight HIV/AIDS. We demand total cancellation of Africa's illegitimate debt as well as affordable access to AIDS drugs, which represents a fundamental human right. In order to fight this pandemic, we must also protect against human rights violations, including racial discrimination. We urge the South African government to immediately announce the implementation of a national mother-to-child HIV prevention programme. In South Africa more than 150 black children are born with HIV every day. Presently, the majority of poor black women with HIV/AIDS are denied an intervention that could save their children while their white and privileged black counter-parts in the private sector receive the best medical interventions. After three years of negotiation Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and its allies had to resort to the courts to enforce the equality of poor black women who use the public sector. We call on all people to support TAC. All governments have a duty to provide prevention, treatment and community support to fight HIV/AIDS, as is being endeavored in Brazil and Botswana. Ending the global AIDS pandemic is directly dependent upon the international fight against racism. Failure to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic will constitute one of the greatest crimes against humanity in world history. Press Conference Friday, August 31 at 1pm, at the Africa regional tent, NGO Forum. If your organization is interested in endorsing this statement, please join us. Africa Action/Student Global AIDS Campaign: Aisha Satterwhite/Adam Taylor 083 341 4274 Treatment Action Campaign: Mark Heywood 083 634 8806 Physicians for Human Rights: Leonard Rubinstein 083 468 8672 Oxfam GB: Mercedes Sayagues 082 448 3299 ##### PRESS RELEASE TAC/OXFAM/MSF: "Discrimination in Media Reporting on Brazil," say NGOs Brazil's decision to grant last week a compulsory license for antiretroviral drug nelfinavir is supported in South Africa by Treatment Action Campaign, Medecins sans Frontieres and Oxfam. "Brazil is not breaking patent rules; it is breaking a monopoly that keeps medicines outrageously expensive for the profit of multinational pharmaceutical companies," says Dr. Eric Goemaere, of Medecins sans Frontieres. By granting a compulsory license, Brazil is only doing what the United States and the European Union regularly do, within the rules of the World Trade Organization. For example, on 16 August the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division announced it would use a compulsory license on a company's portfolio of patents in the field of stereolithography. On 3 July, the EU granted one in Germany for a database on pharmaceutical sales. "There is a double standard in the reporting and it discriminates against developing countries. When the US issues a compulsory license, it is defending consumer interests. When Brazil does it, it is demonized, risks legal action and trade sanctions," points out Dan Mullins, HIV/AIDS coordinator for Oxfam in southern Africa. Brazil announced its decision after six months of failed negotiations on price reductions with Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. As part of the drug therapy, Nelfinavir is given to one-quarter of Brazil's 100,000 AIDS patients under treatment. It costs Brazil US$85 million a year -- nearly one-third of its US$303 AIDS budget. The government sought a reduction of 40% from Roche, equal to what it would save by producing it locally as a generic, and offered the average 5% in royalties. Of the dozen drugs given to patients, Brazil produces eight as cheap generics. Another three have reasonable prices because earlier this year Brazil negotiated with Merck a price reduction of roughly 70%. Brazil's AIDS plan, which includes widespread information, voluntary testing with counseling, and free retroviral treatment, is credited with halving AIDS-related deaths, reducing AIDS-related hospitalizations by 80% and drastically diminishing mother-to-child transmission. Its program is hailed by the United Nations as a model for developing countries. Earlier this year, the United States threatened to take Brazil to the World Trade Organization for infringing patent rules hut dropped the case. "We urge African governments and peoples to support Brazil's move. We call on the South African government to issue compulsory licenses for essential medicines, and thus help break Big Pharma's monopoly over the health of our people," said Mark Heywood, secretary-general of TAC. (ENDS) For information, please contact: Dr. Eric Goemaere, Medecins sans Frontieres, tel +27-(0)21-364-5490 Mark Heywood, Treatment Action Campaign, tel +27-(0)11-717-8634 Mercedes Sayagues, Oxfam GB, tel +27-(0)82 - 448 - 3299 Dan Mullins, Oxfam GB, tel +27-(0)12-362-2118