Bansi Lal Yadav, Dy. Minister of Health

     I echo the positions of Shrimati Bose and Madhur.  India needs a safe and secure supply of medications that are affordable and of good quality.  Indian manufactured drugs are top-quality.  India has to act in its own self-interest.  We cannot afford to lose either a domestic pharmaceutical industry or control over that industry.  

   We have an HIV/AIDS problem, and already can't afford medications. .  For years we thought this was a "gay white man's disease," only to find out that the variant we are getting is HIV 1C and 1E--heterosexually transmitted.    That's why the Western HIV test kits, designed for HIV 1B,  didn't work here.  Our own researchers developed a cheaper and reliable test kit for the  strains of HIV that India has.  

What I propose is to send a contingent of doctors,  nurses, and lab technicians to African countries to work in their AIDS programs. We have large numbers of former Indians who settled in Africa, we can minister to them specifically as well as to the general population.  

Let's send 80 doctors, 80 nurses, and 40 lab technicians, and ask the Global Trust Fund to cover their salaries and expenses.  We should insist that our people get copies of records, so that when they return, we can have conferences on what works and what doesn't.     Nigeria is buying drugs from CIPLA so we should definitely send some staff there.   And we should send some to South Africa--we have a large group of Indians there who need our support.  Let's not bother with Uganda--they expelled Indians in the early 1970's.