Johannesburg - The world's biggest drug firms have criticised South Africa for failing to take up offers of cheap AIDS drugs to combat the country's health crisis.
"[There is] general unresponsiveness on the part of government to utilise the offered assistance . . . it is unjustifiable to blame the nonuse of anti-retroviral HIV/AIDS medicine in the public sector on the price of these products," said the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of South Africa, which submitted the affidavit to the Pretoria High Court.
The latest affidavit was prepared by 39 leading drug firms in their landmark legal action against the South African government, which re sumes in Pretoria on April 18th.