S. Africa's AIDS Drug Dilemma

Thamsanga Nhleko is waiting to die. He has AIDS.

"I do nothing all day," he says. "I just feel pain."

Once a month local hospice workers bring him some food and painkillers, but they have nothing to treat the disease, reports CBS News Correspondent Sarah Carter. While the life prolonging AIDS drug cocktails are showing tremendous promise in the United States and other parts of the world, they are not an option in Kwa-Zulu Natal, where the rate of infection is the highest in the world. One in three has AIDS.

"These drugs cost $600 us dollars per month and the average South African certainly cannot afford the anti-retrovirals for the month," says Dr. Adrienne Wolfson.

With most African countries spending less than $6 per person annually on health care, the expense of life prolonging drugs is simply too dear. Drug companies justify their prices by the high cost of research and development, and rely on patent protection as a way to recover their initial investment.

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Thamsanga Nhleko

Forty drug companies are suing the South African government claiming the new bill violates international drug patents. AIDS activists claim the drug companies are putting profits before lives.

"There is no connection between patent protection and access to drugs," says Vicky Ehrich of Glaxo-Wellcome. "And that is really the issue we should be looking at in a country like South Africa. We absolutely do not put profits before lives."

But while the government and business do battle in court, millions of AIDS sufferers are losing the fight. Hardly anyone in Africa even knows life-prolonging drugs are even available. Doctors believe that since the pills are so unaffordable, it's kinder not to let their patients know.

For the record, the Clinton administration says it is trying to resolve the dispute, working with South Africa to find ways for it to obtain low-cost AIDS drugs without infringing on U.S. patents.