AIDS AND TRADE

The Population Institute of the University of the Philippines released on
June 24 a study on the behavior of persons between the ages of 15 and 24.

This is, according to Dr. Tomas Osias, the director of the Institute, the
period in the life of a young person when forbidden acts are tried for the
first time.

Smoking, drinking, drug use and pre-marital sex are the most common. Of
these risky experiments, the most troubling are drug use and unprotected sex.

Drug addiction, however, can be overcome but teenage pregnancy and sexually
transmitted diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, create long-term social problems.

a oeBecause the population will continue to stay young, the government and
the private sector will continue to face a huge demand for basic social
services, with health and education as the most vital,a Dr. Osias said.

As of May this year, the Department of Health recorded 1,695 cases of
HIV/AIDS with the highest number of infections in the 19 to 30 age band.
Forty percent are women and 60 percent men.

Public health experts classify AIDS as a a oethird wavea disease.

The first wave covers the diseases of poverty: Malaria, TB, malnutrition
and infant mortality.

The diseases of affluence a " heart ailments, stroke, diabetes and cancer a
" that afflict the better-off in both the rich and the poor countries, are
in the second wave.

The third wave diseases are caused by environmental and behavioral
pathologies and affect all countries. They require international
cooperation to mitigate and to solve.

AIDS cannot be cured. The best that can be done today is to slow its
progress. The drugs that do this are the so-called anti-retrovirals. They
attack the HIV virus and allow the immune system to fight off new
infections. Although they have very serious side effects, they at least
prolong the life of an HIV/AIDS infected person.

In the last 15 years, about 20 anti-retroviral drugs have been developed by
large pharmaceutical companies. They spent huge sums of money to develop
and test them. Their price in the marketplace is often beyond the reach of
most people in Third World countries.

Anti-retrovirals was a subject at the meeting of the World Trade
Organization in November 2001 in Doha, Qatar.

Under pressure from countries as various as Tanzania, Thailand and Brazil,
the pharmaceutical companies were forced to agree to allow the governments
of poor countries to relax a " under certain conditions a "s trict patent
rules on selected vaccines and drugs in order to protect public health.

The developing country members also asked for amendments to the
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights so that they might
manufacture and market generic versions of these drugs and vaccines.

Before HIV/AIDS becomes the nightmare that it has become in other
countries, our Departments of Health and Trade and Industry must put in
place the policies that will allow the local manufacture of
anti-retrovirals and the anti-AIDS vaccine that is expected to be on the
market in 10 years or less without violating the rules of the WTO.

In two previous editorials, The Manila Times advocated a policy-bias for
public goods. Drugs and vaccines for HIV/AIDS should be classified as
public goods.