Aid Group to Export Brazil AIDS Program

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) -- Medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders said on Wednesday it is working with Brazil to export the country's successful anti-AIDS program and its locally made AIDS drugs to other developing countries.

The president of the Nobel Prize-winning organization, Bernard Pecoul, said he and Brazilian Health Minister Jose Serra signed a letter of intent as the first step toward replicating Brazil's anti-AIDS experience in Africa, Asia and other parts of Latin America.

"It will start the process of implementing the ambitious AIDS program in other countries," Pecoul told Reuters in a telephone interview. "One of the aspects is exporting the drugs ... but it's also to implement training, production of generics and help with distribution logistics."

Pecoul was in Brazil to meet with health officials in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia and to attend the country's fourth congress on the prevention of AIDS.

Brazil's AIDS program has become a model for developing countries around the globe. In absolute terms, Brazil has a high number of registered AIDS cases, at 210,000, but it has managed to keep HIV infection to less than one percent of the population with aggressive prevention education.

Brazil has also stood up to the international pharmaceutical industry, producing eight of the 12 drugs used in the anti-AIDS cocktail and distributing them free of charge to patients.

Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, plans to work with Brazil to transfer the technology and training needed to establish similar programs in hard-hit countries.

Pecoul said countries like Argentina have the capability of developing their own projects, while many nations in Africa and Central America will have to pool resources to develop regional anti-AIDS programs.

Doctors Without Borders also aims to eventually buy AIDS drugs made by Brazil's state laboratory Far-Manguinhos, though Pecoul stresses it will not be a "commercial" operation.

Under a planned agreement, Brazil would sell medicines at cost, Pecoul said. Doctors Without Borders also buys generics from other companies like India's Cipla, and would continue to buy the medicines offered at the lowest prices.

"Today is just a letter of intent and in coming months we will try to turn it into concrete support," Pecoul said.

Doctors Without Borders currently operates in 29 countries, half of those in Africa.

Brazil has become a leader in the AIDS fight, pressuring the international drug industry to lower prices or face competition from cheaper Brazilian-made drugs.