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Briefcase nr 49
The war on AIDS |
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Providing cheaper tests and treatment
in the
developing world |
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Worldwide, more than 40 million people are
infected with HIV while 5 to 6 million people
living with AIDS currently need treatment.
However, only about 300 000 people in the
developing world are receiving medicine.
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The US Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria Act of 2003, a key policy
initiative, proposes launching the largest
treatment programme in the
20-year history of
the epidemic. First proposed by
United States
President George Bush in January 2003 and later
approved by Congress, the new law targets 14
countries where the epidemic is at its worst.
The programme aims to prevent 7 million new HIV
infections, including mother to child
transmission; treat 2 million people living with
HIV/AIDS with antiretroviral (ARV) therapy; and
care for
10 million HIV-infected individuals and
AIDS orphans.
The United States government plans to devote
approximately $2.4 billion to implementing the
first year of the five-year plan. Final
appropriation still awaits Congressional
approval. USAID has played a major role in this
presidential initiative and their budget for
HIV/AIDS will grow from $433 million in the
first year of the programme,
to $510 million in
the second and $795 million in the third.
USAID is also expanding its prevention
programmes. It is putting more emphasis on
youth, with the expansion of its abstinence and
behaviour change programs; on developing new
technologies, such as microbicides that empower
women and prevent HIV/AIDS transmission; and on
new technologies that facilitate prevention and
treatment, like simple blister packs to
administer drugs to newborns in mother-to-child
transmission programmes. USAID is also currently
reinvigorating programmes to prevent the medical
transmission of HIV, and to improve blood banks
and medical protocols. It is also continuing
active operations research to determine best
practices in all aspects of HIV/AIDS
programming, including prevention,
ARV
treatment, links with nutrition, food and water,
and programmes for vulnerable groups.
Former US President, Bill Clinton, has announced
that
five leading medical technology companies
have agreed to make cuts of up to 80% in the
price of HIV/AIDS laboratory tests for millions
of people in Africa and the Caribbean. Clinton,
whose foundation is working in 16 countries and
territories to set up care, treatment and AIDS
prevention programmes stated: "Such a big saving
means we can treat many more people with the
same amount of money."
The companies involved
are Bayer Diagnostics, part of German drug maker
Bayer, Beckman Coulter Inc., Becton, Dickinson &
Co, French firm bioMerieux and Roche
Diagnostics, a division of Swiss pharmaceutical
Roche Holding AG. This is the second major price
reduction agreement negotiated by the Clinton
Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative. In October 2003,
Clinton announced that four generic drug
companies would offer big discounts on the price
of antiretroviral drugs for use in developing
countries.
The current agreement covers two HIV/AIDS
laboratory tests: the cd4 test, which helps
determine when ARVs should be administered to
people with AIDS; and the viral load test, which
helps measure how effective ARVs are in
suppressing the virus and can warn clinicians to
adjust doses or change regimens. As part of the
agreement, the companies will be providing
equipment and related products and services to
each of the countries involved helping them to
avoid big start-up costs. The foundation expects
that up to
5 million people will benefit from
the tests by the year 2008. Clinton went on to
note that the two agreements would cut costs of
testing and treatment from $800 per patient,
per
year to about $250 per patient.
Along with its drug and test procurement
activities, the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS
Initiative is pioneering a new approach to
launching robust and comprehensive systems for
HIV/AIDS care and treatment in the developing
world.
A coalition of volunteer experts in
business, health care management and education
and AIDS care, treatment and research will form
multidisciplinary teams to provide technical
assistance to governments, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and the private sector. The
foundation has been at work for more than a year
helping individual governments in Africa and the
Caribbean to develop scalable AIDS care,
treatment and prevention strategies. In Africa
it is working with Mozambique, Rwanda, South
Africa and Tanzania, which together account for
about 33% of all people living with AIDS in
Africa. The foundation is also working in close
cooperation with the World Health Organization
and UNAIDS on the
‘3 by 5’ initiative to
scale-up HIV/AIDS care and treatment, an
initiative that aims to provide 3 million people
in developing countries with antiretroviral
therapy by the end
of 2005. It is also working
with other organisations, such as the World Bank
and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria.
Asserting that the public still faces a profound
lack of awareness about HIV/AIDS, United Nations
Secretary General, Kofi Annan, urged media
executives from around the world to use their
influence to spread information that people need
to protect themselves from the deadly disease.
"If there is one thing that we have learned in
the
two decades of this epidemic, it is that in
the world of AIDS, silence is death. As
broadcasters, you can bring the disease out of
the shadows and get people talking about it in
an open and informed way," the Secretary General
stated at the launch in New York of the Global
Media AIDS Initiative, an alliance between the
UN system and the media.
The alliance is the
result of a partnership between the
Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the
Kaiser
Family Foundation.
Noting that recent surveys from more than 40
countries show that over half of all adolescents
and young adults have serious misconceptions
about HIV/AIDS and about how the virus is
transmitted, Annan said, "We must and we can
change this situation." He urged broadcasters to
make the fight against HIV/AIDS a corporate
priority. They could dedicate airtime to public
service messages and provide prominent news
coverage of the epidemic. They could also air
special educational or awareness-raising
programming. The Secretary General said the UN
family and the media could build an alliance
with an ambitious agenda, one that would inform,
educate and entertain people giving them
“the
knowledge and incentive they need to protect
themselves against HIV/AIDS… If we can get young
people to take the lead in the movement for
change, the pandemic can be turned around." |
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Aiming to make AIDS treatment available to all.
Exn.ca |
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