Posted on 31 December, 2011

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011

3. Progress in the Fight Against HIV, TB, and Malaria Under Threat as Health Funding Falters

Donor support to fight diseases that hit the poor hardest has been waning for a while, but the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in November that it was cancelling its annual funding round because donors had not paid up was nonetheless a shock.

Countries will now have to wait until 2014—at the earliest—before they can receive new funds to put more people on treatment for HIV or drug-resistant TB, or roll out diagnostic tests for malaria, for example. The Fund has put a stop-gap solution in place that can prevent treatment interruptions in the meantime, but it’s one that leaves countries hanging on the thinnest of lifelines.

Photo: South Africa 2011 © Samantha Reinders

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011

4. Numbers of Patients on Treatment for Drug-Resistant TB Remains Catastrophically Low

Governments are not meeting the challenge of providing treatment for the rising numbers of people infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), which has infected around five million people over the past ten years.

DR-TB—which occurs when the TB bacterium becomes resistant to anti-TB drugs—can be cured in the majority of cases, but many people go undiagnosed and untreated because of the difficulties involved in getting a correct diagnosis, and the expensive and complex treatment.

In what many hope will prove to be a breakthrough development, a new diagnostic test has been rolled out this year—including by MSF in seven countries—that can drastically reduce the time it takes to diagnose DR-TB, from several weeks to under two hours. Although the test is very expensive and is not as simple a test as is ultimately needed, the fact that it’s now a lot easier to diagnose people should spur governments into putting many more on treatment.

Photo: Armenia 2010 © Bruno De Cock/MSF

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011

5. Turning the Screws on Affordable Medicines Produced in India

India’s role as the “pharmacy of the developing world” is once more under fire this year from both governments and multinational drug companies.

Five years after the drug company Novartis first tried to get a critical part of India’s pro-health patent law thrown out, the company is back for the final round of its legal battle against the Indian government—this time in the Supreme Court.

If Novartis is successful, India will be forced to grant far more patents on medicines than they currently do, blocking the production of more affordable versions of medicines patented elsewhere, and so keeping newer drugs out of reach of those who need them the most.

Photo: Belgium 2010 © Bruno de Cock/MSF