Don't depend on cheap AIDS drugs, says churchwoman

By A. Musamali CHEAP AIDS drugs are likely to mislead Africa into thinking that the main problem confronting the continent has been solved, a Canadian religious leader has said. Omega Bula, the area secretary of the southern division of the United Church of Canada, on Wednesday told journalists at a national council of churches meeting at Colline Hotel, Mukono, that cheap drugs were only a way through which western pharmaceutical companies were making a profit out of Africa. "Northern pharmaceutical companies are just making a quick profit out of the drugs and turning Africans into guinea pigs," she said. She said there was a worrying level of intervention under which low quality things were flooding Africa and the drugs were one of those things. She said AIDS was a social and economic issue that had to be addressed through a multiplicity of approaches. Bula said there were many other diseases and socio-economic ills that should be addressed rather than putting all the emphasis on Aids. Maria Mbelu of the council of Swaziland churches said churches had seen the logic of supporting condom use. She said churches had at first laid emphasis on spiritual matters but had realised that they ought to cater for people who will neither abstain nor stick to one partner.