Word: azt
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...already been too late to save Nkosi. But most South African AIDS patients are so poor that their only hope of survival is free access to treatment drugs through the public health system. And Nkosi himself might have eluded his fate had his mother had access, during pregnancy, to AZT and other treatments known to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus...
...face of the burgeoning epidemic. Nowhere has that been more evident than in the government's failure to provide drugs that could prevent pregnant women from passing HIV to their babies. The government has said it can't afford the 300-rand-per-dose, 28-dose regimen of azt that neighboring nations like Botswana dole out, using funds and drugs from foreign donors. The late South African presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana even suggested publicly that it was not cost effective to save these children when their mothers were already doomed to die: "We don't want a generation of orphans...
...national education campaign wasted millions on a farcical musical. The premature release of a local wonder drug ended in scandal when the drug turned out to be made of industrial solvent. Those fiascoes left the government skittish about embracing expensive programs, inspiring a 1998 decision not to provide azt to HIV-positive pregnant women. Zimbabwe too suffers savagely from feckless leadership. Even in Botswana, where the will to act is gathering strength, the resources to follow through have to come from foreign hands...
...busy investigating other compounds that would interrupt HIV's reproductive cycle at critical points. One particularly attractive target: a molecule that could prevent HIV from inserting its genes into its host's genome. That would give doctors two new ways to block HIV, complementing existing drugs such as AZT (which keeps HIV from converting its viral genome into one that is compatible with human DNA) and protease inhibitors (which hinder HIV's final assembly before leaving the cell...
...started in the labs. The advent of AZT and other HIV drug treatment protocols meant HIV-infected people were not necessarily doomed to a rapid and painful death. But many in the international AIDS community began to depict that silver lining as an entire silver cloud, joyfully proclaiming the end of the plague and effectively lowering our collective guard against the disease...