E-drug: MSF press release on AIDS summit
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Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders PRESS RELEASE
GOVERNMENTS TODAY TO DECIDE FATE OF NINE MILLION LIVES BEFORE AIDS SUMMIT
Latest Research Shows Expanded Treatment Could Turn AIDS Tide
NEW YORK, June 6, 2011 - At a time when HIV treatment has proven to reduce
HIV transmission by 96 percent, governments meeting for the UN Summit on
AIDS must agree today to put nine million people on treatment over the next
four years, despite strong opposition from several key funders, the
international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres
(MSF)/Doctors Without Borders said today.
“After weeks of contentious negotiations, will governments today sign up to
a proposed target to have 15 million people on HIV/AIDS treatment by 2015?”
asked Sharonann Lynch, HIV/AIDS policy advisor for MSF’s Campaign for
Access to Essential Medicines, speaking at a press conference at the UN in
New York. “The world needs an ambitious HIV/AIDS treatment target with a
plan attached to make it a reality - because it will be meaningless if
countries aren’t willing to come up with the cash and actions needed to
break the back of the epidemic.”
The summit comes on the heels of fresh scientific evidence that shows that
treatment is a form of prevention, as it reduces transmission of the virus
from one person to another by 96 percent.
“Over the last ten years, we’ve watched treatment save lives, and now we
know it can also protect entire communities, because treatment is
prevention.” said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, executive director of MSF’s
Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, who worked in MSF’s first
HIV/AIDS treatment project in Thailand. “You’d have to be out of touch with
reality not to want to turn this landmark evidence about HIV treatment into
policies that will get ahead of the wave of new infections. Countries
meeting in New York have the power to change the course of the AIDS
epidemic.”
An additional $6 billion will be needed each year by 2015 to help avert
twelve million new infections and more than seven million deaths by 2020,
according to new research by UNAIDS. This would also help bring the number
of annual infections down from 2.5 million in 2009, to one million by 2015.
However, funding in 2009 and 2010 declined, leaving the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the US-government’s PEPFAR and other programs
short of needed resources to make use of the benefits of ‘treatment as
prevention.’
Governments also need to ensure the cost of medicines remains affordable.
Increased patenting of medicines is already impacting access to the newer
HIV/AIDS medicines needed to treat people as they navigate the life-long
disease. Newer drug combinations can cost nearly 50 times as much as the
first generation of drugs. Countries must immediately stop pushing trade
policies which block the production, export, transit, and importation of
more affordable generic medicines. Such policies are part of a number of
new bilateral free trade agreements, such as one currently under
negotiation between the European Union and India.
“Ten years ago, our patients came to clinics in wheelbarrows, often moments
away from death, because treatment was priced out of reach,” said Dr. von
Schoen-Angerer. “Thanks to affordable generic drugs, we’ve watched
treatment transform lives. Rich countries need to stop the double-speak of
claiming to tackle HIV/AIDS when at the same time they are pushing policies
that will block the price-busting generic competition needed to get more
people on treatment for life.”
Governments must also stop opposing the implementation of strategies
directed toward groups most vulnerable in the epidemic - women, men who
have sex with men, people who inject drugs and sex workers.
“It’s way past high time for leaders to get their heads out of the sand
when it comes to the most marginalized groups affected by this plague,”
said Nonkosi Khumalo, chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign in South
Africa. “Treatment and prevention strategies targeting the most-at-risk
groups are irrelevant if you deny these people’s very existence.”
MSF currently provides antiretroviral treatment to 170,000 people living
with HIV/AIDS in 19 countries and sources more than 80 percent of the
antiretroviral medicines it uses in its projects from generic manufacturers
in India.
To read MSF’s report - Getting Ahead of the Wave: Lessons for the Next
Decade of the AIDS Response, visit
www.doctorswithoutborders.org/stopthevirus
Joanna Keenan
Press Officer
Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
Medecins Sans Frontieres
joanna.keenan [at] geneva.msf.org
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