South Africa to Provide Fluconazole to Poor AIDS Patients
On World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, the South African Health Ministry will sign a deal with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to provide the antifungal treatment fluconazole free of charge to poor AIDS patients also suffering from cryptococcal meningitis, Reuters Health reports. This "rare" move by the Health Ministry, which has previously said that antiretroviral drugs have a "highly limited" place in public health policy, comes after protest from South African AIDS activists who had previously imported less-costly generic versions of the drug from Thailand in protest of the government's refusal to license the drug (Reuters Health, 11/24).
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