1. Is Dr. Yusuf Hameid a humanitarian or a Pirate?
2. What is you assessment of how various parties handled the global AIDS Pandemic?
The AIDS pandemic has had a rapid growth like no disease before it. Ever since its discovery in the U.S., the number of infected discovered grew at such an alarming rate that that U.S. government prioritized the research into developing medicines to treat, cure and slow the disease. The AIDS pandemic has exploded in numbers since its discovery in 1981. There were 234 reported cases of AIDS in 1981 and the number stands at 36.5 Million today. The handling of the AIDS pandemic has had many ups and downs because of the complexity of the issues involved.
ISSUES:
The alarming number of AIDS patients in African Countries who can’t afford even basic medicines
High Cost of R&D of AIDS medication
Triple Cocktail: AIDS is unique in the regard that not one drug alone is sufficient to affect it but a combination of multiple drugs can be potent. However, the ownership of drugs is spread across different companies which further complicates the issue of creating a simple easy to use medication plan
Different patent laws in different countries
Key Players and their Roles
Governments in Developed Countries:
The Positives :
It was U.S.A. which recognized and gave the initial push to drug research on AIDS. At the initial stages, it was not that evident as to how many people actually were infected by AIDS, thus it was possible that Drug Companies might have waited longer and delayed the initial R&D until the full facts about the disease came to light. The U.S. heavily funded AIDS research as highly as contributing 57% of AIDS pharmaceutical research and bearing 1/3rd of costs of clinical trial to incentivize AIDS research.
Fast Tracking FDA approval: Understanding the need of getting a drug quicker to target the alarming growth rate of AIDS, U.S. reduced the time-of-approval by half to 44.6.
The Negatives :
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