[e-drug] MSF's '10 Stories that Mattered in Access to Medicines in 2011'

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E=DRUG: MSF's '10 Stories that Mattered in Access to Medicines in 2011'
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MSF Releases Ten Stories That Mattered in Access to Medicines in 2011

A list of Ten Stories that Mattered in Access to Medicines in 2011 was
released today by the international medical humanitarian organisation
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). The list looks at developments in 2011
that had an impact -whether positive or negative - on people's ability to
access needed drugs, diagnostics and vaccines in developing countries.

'For the diseases our medical teams encounter every day in places where we
work, 2011 was a year of both critical progress and dangerous
backsliding,' said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, executive director of
MSF’s Access Campaign. 'At a time of so much promise, it is crucial to
continue pushing forward, and refuse to accept a double standard in care
between rich and poor countries.'

The list covers key developments regarding diseases MSF confronts in
developing countries: landmark findings about HIV treatment as HIV
prevention; the strikingly low number of people receiving treatment for
more lethal, drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis; a new subsidy intended
to lower the price of malaria treatments that is headed in the wrong
direction; a dangerous global shortage of the drug needed to treat the
parasitic slow killer Chagas disease; slow progress on better adapting
food aid to meet children's needs; vaccine prices finally becoming more
transparent; and the first-ever guidelines to treat an HIV-related
'opportunistic infection,' cryptococcal meningitis.

It also looks at key policy developments of the year, including
unprecedented funding shortfalls at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria; drug companies cutting across-the-board
discounts in middle-income countries; and the continued struggle to ensure
affordable generic medicines can be produced in India, the 'pharmacy of
the developing world.'

Now available: http://www.msfaccess.org/10stories2011

Kind regards,

Michelle Vilk

Coordination and Communications Assistant
Medecins Sans Frontieres
Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
Rue de Lausanne 78
1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: + 41(0) 22 849 89 02
Fax: + 41 (0) 22 849 84 04
michelle.vilk@geneva.msf.org