Isabela Vieira
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The Ministry of Health will save over US$ 31 million in its purchases of the drug Tenofovir. The drug is one of the components of the "cocktail" distributed to HIV patients in Brazil. Beginning this week, the ministry will pay US$ 3.80 for Tenofovir, which has heretofore cost US$ 7.68, more than twice as much.

The decrease in the price of the medication is the result of an agreement signed yesterday (9) in Brasília between the minister of Health, Agenor Álvares, and Joseph Steele, representative of Gilead Sciences, the company that markets the drug. The agreement is set to last one year.

According to the secretary of Health Surveillance, Jarbas Vasconcelos, the ministry intends to use the money it saves to expand treatment and preventive measures as part of the National STD/AIDS Program. He said that "the negotiation was advantageous" and that "the ministry does not want to economize resources but, rather, find ways to apply them better."

Brazil has now become the Latin American country that pays the lowest price for Tenofovir. Humanitarian causes pay even less. 170 thousand people in Brazil receive the cocktail free of charge.

The secretary also assured that the negotiations are not over. He said that he is optimistic about the prospects for new partnerships and that Brazil intends to share its negotiating strategy with the 18 countries that belong to the Latin American and Caribbean Horizontal Technical Cooperation Group (GCTH), which has been meeting since yesterday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Translation: David Silberstein