PlanetAide Announces Cheap AIDS Meds for the Poorest Poor.
This week PlanetAide director Jack O. Weatherford announced a “low-cost medicine program” that will benefit poor people with AIDS who are living in developing countries.
Minneapolis, Minnesota (PRWEB) July 2003 -- This week PlanetAide director
Jack O. Weatherford announced a “low-cost medicine program” that will benefit
poor people with AIDS who are living in developing countries.
“We are
not aware of any program like this that is both widely available and easily
accessible” says Weatherford. “Someone is now able to go to our website and make
a tax-deductible contribution of $630 and purchase a year’s supply of (AIDS
medications) for an indigent AIDS patient living in a developing country.” The
same medicine costs in excess of 10 times this amount in the United States and
many AIDS patients pay $10,000 - $15,000 per year for this medicine.
Weatherford says, “We think this is an excellent low-cost source of AIDS
medications, and we have had several requests from immigrants to the United
States who want to purchase low-cost medicine for their relatives back home who
have AIDS.” Weatherford goes on to say, “We also think this provides our wealthy
citizens the opportunity to make a tax-deductible donation while providing
treatment and extending lives for poor AIDS patients that are otherwise without
treatment.”
The medicine that PlanetAide provides is called
“antiretroviral therapy” for AIDS patients. This medicine has been considered
too costly for most AIDS patients living in developing countries. Only the
most-wealthy in many developing countries have been able to afford this
treatment. Antiretroviral therapy treatment has become widely available to AIDS
patients in the United States and other developed countries. The use of these
treatment options has resulted in significantly longer life expectancies and
significantly less requirements for the services of hospitals, home health care
agencies and nursing homes for seriously ill AIDS patients. This option has not
been available for most AIDS patients in developing countries where 95% of AIDS
cases exist.
When distributing donated medicine PlanetAide gives
priority to AIDS patients in developing countries who are indigent, without
treatment or assistance options, people subject to prejudice, and pregnant
mothers who have AIDS. PlanetAide gives priority to pregnant mothers with AIDS
because a pregnant mother who begins antiretroviral therapy, even in her third
trimester, reduces her transmission rate for passing the HIV virus on to her
infant from about 27% to less than 1%.
PlanetAide does require
recipients of their medicine to be supervised by a medical doctor experienced in
antiretroviral therapy. PlanetAide provides training in antiretroviral therapy
for doctors from developing countries where there are no experienced medical
personnel. Doctors from developing countries come to the United States for
3-month rotations with AIDS-experienced doctors who volunteer to train them.
PlanetAide finds volunteer hosts who invite these visiting doctors into their
homes for three months since a three-month trip to the United States is cost
prohibitive to most of these doctors.
PlanetAide is a grassroots
non-profit organization started in Minnesota in 2000 for the sole purpose of
assisting indigent people with AIDS who live in developing countries.
PlanetAide’s executive director Jack O. Weatherford is well aware of what it is
like living with AIDS. He tested positive for the HIV virus in 1985 when he was
living in San Francisco. “I remember what it was like to be without treatment
options, scared and living with a disease that people were ashamed to admit they
had. Because of the great care and support I received, I have successfully lived
this long without being hospitalized, and I am in good health. It is now time we
pass this on.” PlanetAide currently has volunteers in at least six different
states and a board of directors representing four different countries. To find
out more about PlanetAide and it’s programs, log onto www.planetaide.org.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/7/prweb70963.htm