Why curing baldness is more lucrative than saving African lives

The world's pharmaceutical companies would rather develop a drug against baldness than invest in a drug against the scourge of sleeping sickness, according to market research company IMS Health of Westport> Connecticut.

In a report released on the eve of President Thabo Mbeki's first official

visit to the United States, the company highlighted the lack of interest among major pharmaceutical manufacturers in producing drugs specifically for African diseases. With the controversy over AIDS already dogging the South African President's visit, the report sounded a warning over the looming disaster caused by the lack of drugs against malaria, tuberculosis and trypanosomias (sleeping sickness).

Western drug manufacturers counter accusations of insensitivity to Africa's requirements by pointing out that it's all a question of economics, citing low financial incentives producing drugs exclusively for the African market.

This cavalier attitude is under fire from African-American health activists at a time when the scourge of AIDS is a US presidential election issue. Even the World Trade Organization has joined in. Condemning the manufacturers, they call on world governments to exert pressure on pharmaceutical producers to turn their attention to Africa's desperate medical needs. President Clinton himself brought the subject up as a matter of urgency with western leaders in Lisbon as part of his European tour.