Millions of children without drugs

In Kinshasa among the volunteers. "Few antivirals for minors, they are not convenient for companies" In Africa of AIDS orphans
The appeal of Médecins Sans Frontières: there is no treatment in pediatric doses Little ones alone on the streets of the Congo. From Corriere.it 01-30-07

KINSHASA (Congo) — Saturday in January, it is hot and humid in Kinshasa. In a clinic, Congo women tell their children a strange fairy tale. Talk about illness and discrimination, because everyone here, mothers and children, are HIV positive. It is the story of the little lion Becki: «His mother fell ill and died while they were traveling to look for the medicines he needed a piece of the moon, the water of the Red Sea, a very green leaf. One day Becki's fur becomes lighter as the virus hit it. The lion cub thinks he's the only sick little one and hides in shame. But a young lioness falls in love with him, explains to him that those medicines his mother was looking for work, invites him to return to the village to tell everyone. In the end she and Becki go home together: every day they eat a piece of moon and a piece of leaf, with a little water from the Red Sea». The educator folds the sheets with the drawings of the animals and asks «which of you takes medicine?»: the children raise their hands. There will be around thirty, the youngest are 2 or 3 years old, the older ones 8 or 9. Almost all of them have been HIV positive since birth. And some already need antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), the substances that make a normal life possible for those whose immune systems are undermined by HIV. In Africa, however, finding them is as difficult as making a cocktail of the moon, the Red Sea and very green leaves. Once a month, the Médecins Sans Frontières support group for sick children meets at the Kabinda Outpatient Treatment Center. Here the Arvs, the "generic" ones produced in India at low cost, are distributed free of charge. In all there are about a hundred minors under treatment in this outpost of the fight against evil which in 2006 infected another 2 million 800 thousand Africans and took the lives of more than 2 million. Surveys conducted by the Ministry of Health on pregnant women, considered a probative sample, say that today in the Democratic Republic of Congo there are 7 million HIV-positive people: about 1 million and 200 thousand live with AIDS and at least 160,000 would need Arv. According to the World Health Organization, a paltry 5% receives them. No one knows how many children in the city, or in the rest of a country that is slightly smaller than Western Europe, are in need of treatment for HIV. The only sure thing is that there are many of them and that for them there are simply no drugs here. "In the world - attacks MSF - few pediatric formulations of antiretrovirals are produced because children do not represent an attractive market for the industries". And again: «Those that exist cost too much.
It costs about 1,300 dollars a year to treat a 14-kilo child, compared to the 200 needed to treat an adult». The main obstacle is called poverty. Some ARVs need to be kept in the fridge and this too is a problem down here: «Fridge? Sometimes hospitals don't even have it,” says Anja, a 33-year-old Belgian, coordinator of MSF's HIV project in Kinshasa. Millions of infected children Doctors Without Borders is trying to shake consciences and governments: «In the world there are about 2 million and 300 thousand children affected by HIV/Aids; over 2 million live in poor countries: 660,000 are at a stage of the disease that would require ARV therapies, but only a minority obtains them. Every day 1,500