TENOFOVIR TO BE AVAILABLE FOR $1 PER DAY IN THAILAND

U.S.-based drugmaker Gilead will sell its HIV drug tenofovir in Thailand for approximately $1 per tablet. The country's Food and Drug Administration has approved tenofovir for sale at this price, and it should be available next month.

The number of people growing resistant to the local standard treatment GPO-Vir is growing by about 10 percent a year.

Tenofovir must be taken in combination with two other medications, and the total cost of the treatment may still be too expensive for many Thai patients. The government is also testing tenofovir as a morning-after prophylaxis treatment for people who believe they were recently exposed to HIV.

Of the 600,000 Thais with HIV, about 80,000 are receiving treatment. Approximately 18,000 new cases were reported last year. The government's treatment program has been praised for cutting the number of deaths from AIDS by approximately 75 percent last year.