Generic Sovaldi from India, $695, 84 tablets of Hepcinat (sofosbuvir 400mg)

Only ten days before I leave for India. Now I start to worry, wondering if I have done the right thing? Have I just wasted $3,000? What if I get to India and cannot get a doctor to prescribe the drug for me? What if I go to India and come back with fake tablets? It happens often enough.

I went to my GP today to get a final blood test and have a chat. He was very supportive and reaffirmed how important Indian pharmaceutical companies had been in reducing the cost of HIV drugs in the 1990's. My GP worked in an AIDS clinic in Africa during the early 1990's and he told me how, because of the high cost of the HIV drugs then, getting HIV was basically a death sentence for most of his patients. Then the Indian government had decided to ignore the patents on HIV drugs and started manufacturing and supplying cheap HIV drugs for India and also its African neighbors. My doctor said that all of a sudden his clinic was able to help people with HIV. This continued for a couple of years while the big multi-national drug companies put more and more pressure on India to stop supplying the cheap drugs. Then pressure was put on the particular African country my GP was working in. The government was told either it stopped using the Indian generic brands or all its funding from the World Health Organization would be stopped. So the generic brands were stopped. Suddenly the Clinic had no access to the cheap Indian drugs and people started dieing again.

According to my GP thousands and thousands of people died before pressure from powerful individuals and organisations reversed the process and the India generics were allowed back into Africa.

By strange coincidence, again, as I was walking to the doctor's surgery for my final blood tests I bumped into Z's wife again. That was too weird, to bump into her twice in three days when I have not seen her more than four times in the last seven years. I had been thinking about Z as I drove in, thinking about his situation and I mentioned this to her. I told her I would be happy to bring back an extra treatment pack for Z if I could but she told me that he had seen the doctor last week and been informed that Sofosbuvir was going to be approved by the PBS in June and that Z should be able to be treated because his health was pretty bad and because the Interferon treatment had failed. I hope she has got the correct information.


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