AIDS sufferers bemoan lack of drugs in China

By Tan Ee Lyn | REUTERS | via Yahoo
15 August 2006

Meng Lin, who is HIV positive and an AIDS activist in Beijing, relies on friends to send him drugs from overseas every month -- medicine he needs to stay alive.

There are days when he despairs as he watches his cache of drugs dwindle with no replenishment in sight.

"I feel very troubled when the supply drops to just eight to 10 days. The worst is when there's just a day's supply left, before the replenishment arrives," Meng told Reuters in a telephone call from Beijing.

"It often happens and I get very anxious because if (I develop resistance to these drugs), there'll be no more chance for me."

Experts at the 16th international AIDS conference in Toronto this week are discussing the difficulties in making AIDS drugs widely available to everyone around the world who needs them.

Some 650,000 people in China are living with HIV/AIDS, but only one in four who need HIV drugs received them in 2005, according to a recent report by the United Nations' UNAIDS.

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