Activists from Eastern Europe held a protest against the greed of international pharmaceutical companies during AIDS2016 – the World Conference on HIV / AIDS in South Africa.
On July 19, during one of the sessions of the AIDS2016 World Conference currently taking place in Durban, South Africa, a group of activists from Central and Eastern Europe held a protest. Entering the hall and interrupting the session, sponsored by the large pharmaceutical company Gilead, the activists chanted: “Pharma greed kills!”, “Pills cost a penny, greed costs lives!”.
Grigory Vergus posted the video from the action on his Facebook page
Russian activist Denis Godlevsky said in his speech: “Gilead is a company that blocks access to life-saving drugs for patients from Eastern Europe. To do this, various methods are used – often evading the registration of their most innovative drugs in the markets of these countries. Countries such as Russia are left out of Gilead’s negotiations with generic drug manufacturers, thus depriving generic drug manufacturers of their ability to supply their drugs to Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe. And these are drugs that can save the lives of many people.”
The high price of drugs is one of the reasons why public procurement of drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is not possible for patients with HIV and other diseases, as well as for patients who cannot afford to buy such expensive drugs.
Godlevsky called on international experts and the scientific community to do everything to ensure that access to drugs for the treatment of viral hepatitis C in full appeared not only among residents of the US and the EU, but all over the world.
We remind you that the cost of original Gilead products for the treatment of hepatitis C for Eastern Europe today is:
- Sofosbuvir (“Sovaldi”) – $ 3000 for 1 can of the drug, of 28 tablets for 28 days.
- Sofosbuvir / Ledipasvir (“Harvoni”) – $ 84,000 for a course of 12 weeks
- Sofosbuvir / Veltapasvir (“Epklusa”) – $ 74,760 for a course of 12 weeks.
