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Then of course there is the issue of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). Pharmaceutical companies are too eager to protect their intellectual property rights, as opposed to ensuring the provision of low-cost drugs to poor countries, despite the various appeals by individual states and health activists worldwide. Late last year, Central Americans protested against another blatantly neo-liberal move that would make low cost drugs harder to procure. According to a Los Angeles Times article written by Marla Dickenson and Evelyn Iritani on April 22, 2005, the Dominican Republic – Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, would give American pharmaceutical giants a five-year edge on the development of new drugs by low-cost competitors.
These intellectual protections would force the prices for treating chronic conditions like AIDS to go up. This would be disastrous for the more than 275, 000 HIV positive people who live in the six Latin American countries/CAFTA nations. The latest information, according to the US Department of State official website (www.usinfo.state.gov), is that the US is prepared to implement the CAFTA agreement, and will act quickly once the signatory countries have completed commitments. The US government was prepared, “to start as close as possible to January 1, 2006, so that U.S. and regional businesses can begin taking advantage of its benefits in the shortest possible time"(Christin Baker, spokesperson of the office of the US Trade Representative).
How far will the World Social Forum take us? Will Africa change for the better? Will we make a breakthrough regarding HIV and AIDS? After the forum is over and people have gone back to their respective homes, whither shall society wander?
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mbonisi zikhali
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