Billions for war on Aids will go to drug firms, say activists

Leaders of the world's richest countries have agreed to provide billions of dollars to help fight Aids in Africa at the G8 summit but yesterday campaigners said that under present trade rules much of that cash would go to multinational pharmaceutical companies.

To the disappointment of pressure groups monitoring the summit, the leaders failed to make progress on new trade rules to allow poor countries to buy cheap, generic versions of new medicines, including the drugs that can arrest Aids.

France, as the summit host, had been pushing for an agreement in principle that existing rules, which forbid Third World countries from buying cheap versions of the drugs from other developing countries, should be relaxed. President Jacques Chirac's spokes-woman, Catherine Colonna, said progress was made on the issue. She explained that there was an "agreement to agree" at the next round of trade talks in Cancun in Mexico in the autumn.

The United States, in particular, objects to a dilution of the international law on copyright, which would allow Third World countries, unable to make their own generic drugs, to buy them cheaply from developing nations such as Brazil.

President George Bush announced before the Evian summit began that the US would give $15bn (£9.2bn) over five years to help to fight Aids in the world's poorest countries, especially in Africa. European Union countries agreed on Sunday to try to match the pledge.

Speaking from Evian yesterday, Nathan Ford, the medical director of Médécins sans Frontières in the UK, said the new money was welcome but a change in copyright law would be even more useful. It would help to make cheap drugs available to Third World countries to fight not only Aids but a host of other diseases.

Under present rules, he said, a poor country might have to spend $1,500 (£920) a year to treat one HIV-infected person with brand name antiretroviral drugs. Generic medicines could reduce the cost to £185 a year per person. In other words, Mr Ford explained, without a change in the trade rules, much of the money offered by America and Europe would simply come back to the large American and European pharmaceutical corporations.