America is throwing its weight behind African production of antiretrovirals, with the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief programme (Pepfar) committing to buying ARVs for 2m African patients from local suppliers, said Stavros Nicolaou, head of strategic trade at Aspen Pharmacare.
Since inception, Pepfar, initiated by former President George W Bush in 2003, has saved more than 25m lives and allowed at least 5.5m children to be born free of the HIV virus, reports News24.
“Pepfar is important because HIV/Aids is still one of the most menacing pandemics on the continent,” Nicolaou said. “In Africa, you’ve got such a disproportionate disease burden that when you also aim to grow the economy inclusively, it becomes a dual need to make drugs on the continent.”
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