KENYA FIELD TRIALS

This is the story of a drug which worked in Kenya--
And, outside White Race forces killed it
Why?
Answer: The New World Order wants Africa DEAD!

Title:
KENYA:
A TRIAL FIELD IN THE RACE AGAINST AIDS.

AN INTER PRESS SERVICE FEATURE

by Horace Awori

NAIROBI, JUL 10 , 1995(IPS) -- Kenyans infected with AIDS are up in arms with their government for blocking a drug which they claim could have a positive therapeutic effect.

"It is we who are suffering and dying and it's we who have tried this medicine. And we are testifying that it produces good results," a spokesperson for the Kenya Know AIDS Society told the country's minister of health, Mwai Kibaki.

The society groups aids patients in this east African country where the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome has created situations that are becoming difficult to handle, particularly for persons already afflicted by the scourge.

The patients' appeal follows a government ban on a new, but controversial drug, 'Immunex' brought into Kenya for management of AIDS instead of another drug, 'Kemron, which has been hard to come by in local hospitals.

Government maintains it will not allow 'Immunex' to be administered to AIDS patients until the Australian drug has been clinically tested and registered.

But the government ban came weeks after the drug was imported into the country, distributed to pharmacies and prescribed for AIDS sufferers. The patients affirmed that AIDS symptoms disappeared within three weeks of application of 'Immunex.'

Kenya's own interferon drug, Kemron, which was approved in 1989 for AIDS management is still under evaluation.

'Immunex' is reportedly produced by Encarich Development Limited of Victoria, Australia.

"I would hate to be in Mwai Kibaki's shoes," a private medical practitioner here, Samuel Indiek, told IPS, "the cry of the AIDS sufferers is heart-rending but how far should the system bend its laws to allow any new discovery to be freely available in the pharmacies without trials?"

A consultant psychiatrist who declined to be identified described the situation as "very tricky."

"Just as the drug companies are out to make money fast and to test their medicines in poor countries, so are the AIDS sufferers desperately willing to try anything for a cure," he said.

According to the psychiatrist, there are the dangers of society being blackmailed emotionally by the sufferers and the drug companies exploiting the plight of the patients.

Referring to the Kenya Know AIDS Society's assertion that by holding back 'Immunex' the government wanted AIDS victims to die quickly, the psychiatrist said that was tantamount to emotional blackmail though understandable from those who see no hope of recovery.

The World Health Organization estimates that between 500,000 and one million people around the world will die of AIDS-related diseases by the year 2000. Another 40 million will be carrying the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that leads to AIDS.

According to medical sources here, the appearance of the 'Immunex' drug in Kenya is the work of those who initially worked with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), Amarillocell Culture Company (ACC) of Texas and Heyashibara Biomeclinical Laboratories of Japan.

The three institutions were collaborators on Kemron. But shortly after the launch of Kemron, Kemri, ACC and its local distributing subsidiary, innovative therapeutics limited, were entangled in a dispute over ownership and distribution rights for the drug.

Unconfirmed reports had it that a former worker of the ACC was behind the production of 'Immunex' by an Australian firm, Encarich Development Limited.

ACC was reportedly pushing for a ban on 'Immunex' distribution and has threatened legal action against the drug manufacturers for infringement of patent rights.

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