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SAN FRANCISCO – Lee Wildes can’t stand inaction when it comes to treating patients with HIV and AIDS. That’s why he has sent thousands of dollars of surplus drugs to HIV sufferers in Africa — all but ignoring federal and international guidelines against doing so. 

Despite strict regulations enforced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization, Wildes believes the need is too great in a continent ravaged by the deadly disease. 

Wildes, a registered nurse who himself has tested positive for HIV, wants to save 100 lives in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Congo. Federal authorities have not attempted to stop his shipments. 

“Busting us would be criminal,” Wildes told the San Jose Mercury News. “They’d be killing 100 people.” 

The shelves of his apartment are lined with HIV medications. Once Wildes replaces the drugstore labels with ones reading “African AIDS Network,” he mails the pills to contacts in Africa. 

In Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, Esther Guza knows she could never afford $1,170 — the price that the HIV medications would otherwise command. Every three months she receives a package from the African AIDS Network. 

“It’s a miracle,” Guza said “Sometimes you don’t know how to express your gratitude” 

Wildes started collecting the surplus drugs in 1997 from friends and family of AIDS victims who were clearing their counters of leftover medicine bottles. As word of Wildes’ project spread, doctors and nurses throughout the nation began sending him HIV drugs that were nearing their expiration. 

His work is done on the hush, with names and institutions kept confidential. 

Local AIDS service centers in Africa, like the one that introduced Wildes to Guza, say many HIV sufferers owe their lives to the underground drug supply network. 

“We have thirty people alive today,” said Lynde Francis, founder of the center where Guza had been receiving meningitis and tuberculosis treatments. “Every single one of those thirty would be dead now if we didn’t have the medicine from Lee.” 

Not everyone approves of what Wildes, or “Saint Lee” as many of his patients call him, is doing. 

The FDA prohibits anyone from sharing their drugs and the World Health Organization tries prevent shipments of those expired medicines to developing countries, where high prices can keep them out of the hands of those in need. 

The six countries Wildes sends drugs to accounted for 878,600 AIDS -related deaths in 1999, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. 

Those who contribute to the African AIDS Network say the ravages of AIDS compels them to continue.