Africa

Without proper treatment, half of the 370,000 children newly infected with HIV last year will die before they reach their second birthday. But very few medicines are designed and adapted specifically for children, and are affordable and practical to use in the places where they live. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) recently announced a new project to help develop appropriate HIV drugs for children.  Listen to this podcast where Rachel Cohen, DNDi's Regional Executive Director in North America, explains more. Previously Cohen served as Head of Mission for MSF in South Africa and Lesotho, where she oversaw numerous medical programmes, primarily focused on HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis treatment in rural and...

Gilead Sciences has become the first pharmaceutical company to sign a licensing agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool to increase access to HIV and Hepatitis B treatment in developing countries... "The licensing agreement is a positive step but we have some reservations; it excludes middle-income countries like Brazil and China, which will now have to issue compulsory licences if they want to manufacture the drugs still in development," Tido von Schoen-Angerer, executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières' Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, told IRIN/PlusNews. In addition, MSF says the licensing agreement limits "price-busting competition" by confining manufacturing to India, meaning...

Fixed targets for universal access to AIDS treatment and funding to make it achievable are what HIV and AIDS organisations want from the upcoming United Nations General Assembly Special Session due to be held in New York next month. Due to be held in early June and attended by international policy makers and heads of state, this meeting will shape the direction of the global response to HIV and AIDS for the next decade and beyond. The 2006 Special Session of the General Assembly (UNGASS) and subsequent creation of the Global Fund grant distribution body were instrumental in mobilising funding for the expansion of antiretroviral treatment (ART) programmes, which now reach roughly five million people...Campaigners stress that this momentum...

  Open publication - Free publishing - More aids   "Getting Ahead of the Wave: Lessons for the Next Decade of the AIDS Response" details MSF’s experience implementing treatment strategies to improve care and policies needed to make massive scale-up of treatment more affordable. The report also presents results of a survey conducted by MSF teams in 16 countries on progress in implementing WHO treatment guidelines as well as other important strategies to increase access to antiretroviral treatment (ART). While many countries have adopted improved protocols and policies, most HIV-prevalent countries are still struggling to reach more than 50% of people in need of ART or provide ART in more than...