Films

A RIGHT TO LIVE - AIDSMEDICATION FOR MILLIONS

When Krisana Kraisintu can't sleep at night she is thinking of the pregnant women that didn't even know what AIDS or HIV is. For them and all the other women, men and children that suffer from the deadly disease Ms Kraisintu, who used to run the research department of the pharmaceutical organisation of the Thai government, developed and produced the, so far, cheapest HIV–medicament in the world. We are talking about a generic which contains identical active substances to a branded medication with the name of GPO–vir but that is 26 times cheaper than the original from the big pharmaceutical groups. At first Ms Kraisintu produced the generic in her home country. That was in 1992. She went to Africa when the production was up and running. Since then the now 52 year old built up factories in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tanzania to produce the inexpensive medication.

The film touches on the extent of the HIV catastrophe existing in some of the African states and explains why it is so difficult here to supply HIV infected people with sufficient medication. The local people are often ignorant about the disease, the medications are, because of patent rights owned by Western pharmaceutical groups, too expensive and there is no infrastructure to distribute the existing medication.

This is where Ms Kraisintu comes in with her production generics in situ. The film accompanies Ms Kraisintu while she builds a new factory in Africa. We experience a woman that takes local hurdles with a forceful persuasiveness and who shows great humanity in her brave work. Brave – because she gets regularly threatened by three big producers of the three anti– Aids substances from the US, the UK and Germany. The film is also allowing a view in from the outside: Here is a woman who steals a lucrative market from the pharmaceutical groups. How do they cope? There is also the view from the affected: A family from Bukavo, several members of which are HIV infected, report how the medication is giving them renewed hope for the future.

A film by ARTE / WDR, 2006
45 min. documentary

Director: Birgit Schulz
Photographer: Oliver Vogt
Sound: Ute Haverkämper
Editor: Katherina Schmidt
Commissioning Editor: Andrea Ernst


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