A Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Hans Hogerzeil said that India has the perquisites to become the leading supplier of HIV fixed-dose combinations for children. Representing the Geneva-based Department of Medicines Policy and Standards as part of the WHO, he said many children especially in Africa are dying because of lack of simple tools. The lack of cheap feasible diagnostics for children under 18 months, trained personnel, and the affordable child friendly antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are the main reasons for many of the deaths. Although WHO has simplified the drugs combinations, countries find it difficult to get simple and affordable combinations. One reason is that pediatric drug cocktails are not profitable for drug manufacturers in western countries because there are very few children born with the virus there. The second reason is that since the cost of treating a child is 6 times as expensive as treating an adult, drug companies do see a business potential to go through many testing and conformance procedures to address a small market. However, Indian laws do not disallow the mass production of fixed-dose drug cocktails creating a large unaddressed market for Indian pharmaceutical drug manufacturers.

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