The Hindu Business Line : Garnering resources, negotiating prices — Clinton to take up India's initiatives on AIDS

In his 40-minute long pre-lunch meeting with the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mr Clinton has offered to "advocate" India's proposals - from negotiating to bring down the cost of kits and machinery used in the AIDS treatment to garnering resources from countries such as Canada, Ireland and Norway.

The Union Health Minister, Ms Sushma Swaraj, told media that the former US President offered to advocate India's anti-AIDS programme in the mentioned countries to bring in resources to support programmes in India.

Responding to India's need for testing machines and kits, he has also offered to "pool India's requirement with South Africa and negotiate with a Chinese company for a suitable price," the Minister said. Ms Swaraj had attended the meeting and lunch hosted on Friday by the Prime Minister for the former US President.

"The administration of anti-retroviral (ARV) or anti-AIDS drugs follows preliminary tests and investigations and requires monitoring. At present, we have about 25 machines to test the CD4 count and we need about 150 machines. However, these tests are expensive and each machine costs about Rs 25 lakh.

Further, the kits required for testing cost about $40 and $20 respectively and the Clinton Foundation is negotiating to bring this down to $10 and $3 respectively," she said.

The Clinton Foundation negotiates with governments and the resources that come forth flow directly to the country that requires it and not through the foundation, Mr Clinton is said to have clarified.

Ms Swaraj pointed out that India's anti-AIDS programme has evolved from a preventive strategy to being care and support oriented.

Further, she pointed out that the foundation would also facilitate the training of medical professionals in India to deal with AIDS-related issues, given the increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistance.

On the India front, she said that a meeting had been initiated with the domestic pharma companies to bring down the costs of ARVs.

And to facilitate this, she said that she would look into the drug companies' requirements for fiscal incentives.

The Clinton Foundation had recently pulled off a winner when it brought down ARV costs by two-third for the

African markets, by negotiating with Indian companies.

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