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| Sunday, 8 December 2002 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Drugs to prolong lives of AIDS victims on pipeline by CAROL ALOYSIUS Anticvetroviral drugs with a proven track record of prolonging the life span of HIV/AIDS victims, are likely to be available in Sri Lanka for the first time, shortly. Speaking to 'Sunday Observer' on the eve of World AIDS Day which fell on December 1, Dr Kulasiri Buddhakorala, Consultant Venereologist, National STD/AIDS Control Program, said that the Health Ministry was currently engaged in discussions with the government to make these highly effective drugs available to Lankan AIDS patients. At present they are mostly available in affluent countries due to their prohibitive costs. "We are trying to see if we can import them from India as they will be cheaper", he said. Once imported, the drugs are likely to cost around Rs. 5,000 per patient per month. Dr Buddhakorala added that the possibility of obtaining approximately five million rupees from the Global Fund for the Prevention of AIDS and TB was also being explored. "If they are made available to our local AIDS patients, they can live longer and enjoy a better quality of life as well", he stressed. Sri Lanka's first AIDS patient (a foreigner) was detected in 1986. The following year, for the first time, a local victim was reported. The latter however had been infected while he was abroad. In 1989, the first locally transmitted case of AIDS was reported. Since then, upto now, Health Ministry officials place the cumulative number of cases of reported HIV/AIDS at 436, of which 268 are males and 168 are females. |
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