|
|
 |
|
| Philanthropy |
Filling Four Fissures
William Jefferson Clinton
05/03/2004
|
There are 40 million people who are HIV-positive in
the world, and only about 400,000 out of the 5.9 million people who need
medicine immediately are getting it. Part of the reason is that the
antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) are expensive. Let me give you an example. The
Bahamas used to pay $3,800 a year for generic medicine. When we found out they
were buying through two different agents and getting ripped off, we jumped in to
cut the price from $3,800 to just under $500. All of a sudden, they could treat
seven times as many people. We have now made agreements with five drug
companies—Aspen, Ranbaxy, Cipla, Hetero and Matrix—to sell ARVs to the
developing world for $139 per person, per year, which is less than half the
price countries in Africa were paying before, and a small fraction of what some
countries in the Caribbean are being charged.
Then, in order to bring down
the prices for the diagnostic tests that are used to show whether the medicine
is working, we had to make agreements with some of the leading medical
technology companies, including Roche, Bayer, Beckman Coulter and BD. We have
done that, and have lowered the price of these tests by up to 80 percent.
Believe in the Future
Here is where other American philanthropists come
in. All of these projects stand for something bigger. They say that Americans
realize that we live in a smaller and smaller world, and that we think our
differences make life interesting, but our common humanity matters more. It says
that, of course, we want to find Osama bin Laden and uproot all the terrorist
networks in the world but, in the end, we know that since we cannot possibly
kill, jail or occupy all of our actual and potential enemies, we have to take a
little time and effort to build a world with more friends and fewer terrorists.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
