December 30 2002, By Rajeev Syal, London

Medicines provided cheaply to treat AIDS patients in Africa are being smuggled back into Britain and sold on the black market.

Police believe African officials are making tens of millions of pounds a year selling drugs shipped to them at cost price and that fetch big premiums in mainland Europe.

British investigators have smashed one smuggling ring in Senegal, west Africa, where a government-appointed official sold £12 million ($A34.3 million) worth of AIDS drugs to pharmacists in Europe. Another smuggling ring in South Africa is being investigated by Interpol, the international police service.

The discovery is an embarrassment to ministers in Whitehall who have placed enormous pressure on pharmaceutical companies to provide AIDS drugs to Africa for no profit. The ministerial pressure culminated in November when Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed through a two-tier pricing system to ensure the supply of cheap medicines to poorer countries.

As a result, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of AIDS drugs are being sold at cost to Africa, where in some countries as many as one in three adults is infected with HIV. The drugs are supplied on the understanding that they will not be sold for profit in developed nations.

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2002