AIDS IN AFRICA (AZT)...BUDGET BEFORE TREATMENT
AIDS is a disease that has negatively impacted the continent of Africa massively. AZT trials were conducted in Africa to treat AIDS. Clinical trials of “short course” AZT took place in the countries such as Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoie, and Burkina Faso. The original 076 regimen used to treat AIDS in the United States was too expensive for developing countries. The aim of the “short course” trials was to find a cheap and effective way of the suppressing the transmission of HIV or AIDS from mothers to their babies.
AZT is a drug that terminates the reproduction of DNA and decreases the amount of virus in the bloodstream. It was approved by the FDA in 1987, after only one trial on humans as opposed to the typical 3 trials on humans. The trial last only 19 weeks and was ended because patients that were administered a dummy/placebo pill were dying at fast rates. Side effects of AZT include birth defects, worsened symptoms of AIDS, and children mortality.
In the United States the drug regimen used to treat AIDS was about $1000 per pregnant woman. The “short course” regimen conducted in Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoie, and Burkina Faso, involved administering oral AZT only in the last 4 weeks of a pregnancy and during labor. The cost of the regimen was about $50. In the trials, half of the pregnant woman in the trials received AZT. The levels of AZT received in the African countries differed from the levels administered in the United States. The other half of pregnant women that did not receive AZT, were administered dummy/placebo pills without any knowledge of it. This resulted in more that 1,000 infants to contract the AIDS virus from their mothers. Federal officials claimed that use of dummy/placebo pills was the only route to fast and reliable results that did deprive the pregnant woman of treatment because AZT is unaffordable in developing countries.
Sources:
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