Access to medicines and treatment

Access to medicines and treatment features

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  PrEP wars: debating pre-exposure prophylaxis in the gay community

  Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) was approved in the US in July, following trials showing its efficacy in preventing sexual transmission of HIV. But, as Gus Cairns finds out, it...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Point-of-care (POC) diagnostics are essential to achieving an AIDS-free generation and improving outcomes in HIV-exposed children

  This edition reviews recent evidence on point-of-care testing, on tests in development, and looks at experience of optimising performance of dried blood spot sampling....

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  The bottom line in clinical care: The new BHIVA standards

  Gus Cairns summarises this important new document. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  "How are we going to have a baby? I’m positive and you’re not"

  Joanna Moss of the African Health Policy Network (AHPN) looks at conception and fertility guidelines and services for people living with HIV in the UK. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  The generic generation

  In the next few years, some of the most widely used HIV drugs will come off patent in the UK. Gus Cairns asks: what are the...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Hillary Clinton pledges money for vulnerable minorities, reproductive rights, AIDS-free families

  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received a relatively warm reception yesterday at the 19th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington DC, as she supported the...

  From:  News

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  Switching drugs for cost reasons – the patient experience

  In April 2011, the London Specialised Commissioning Group (LSCG), which funds HIV treatment in the capital, issued a new set of messages to clinics on HIV drug...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Will the world pay up to end HIV? Global AIDS funding

  We are at a critical point in the history of the HIV epidemic. We potentially have the tools to end it but, asks guest writer Laura...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Overhauling health: NHS reform, HIV and patient power

  The HTU guide to the NHS reforms, how they’ll affect you and how you can make the most of them. By Gus Cairns....

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Barriers to care: immigration removal centres and HIV

  Evidence has shown that a series of failings in immigration removal centres (IRCs) has compromised the continuity of care for people with HIV. Guest writer Daniel Lombard investigates. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

Access to medicines and treatment news from aidsmap

• Are we underestimating the proportion of virally-suppressed patients in the US?

  Several presentations at the recent 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta suggest that previous estimates of the proportion of people with HIV in the USA who are on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and with an undetectable viral ...

  15 March 2013 | Gus Cairns

• Second-line NRTI-sparing regimen proves equally effective for resource-limited settings

  A second-line antiretroviral regimen of lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra/Aluvia) and raltegravir (Isentress) proved just as effective as a regimen containing lopinavir/ritonavir and two or three nucleoside or nucleotide analogues in large study conducted in Australia, Africa, Latin America and Asia, researchers ...

  07 March 2013 | Keith Alcorn

• Continuing cotrimoxazole in children on ART reduces the risk of hospitalisation

  Children on ART for more than two years who continued taking daily cotrimoxazole had significantly fewer hospitalisations for malaria as well as for non-malarial infections (notably pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis), compared to children who stopped this treatment, researchers from Uganda ...

  06 March 2013 | Carole Leach-Lemens

• HIV treatment for children is safe and highly effective without laboratory monitoring in large African trial

  Children did just as well on antiretroviral therapy without routine laboratory monitoring of CD4 cell counts or drug side-effects as those who received regular monitoring during four years of follow-up, researchers from Uganda and Zimbabwe reported on 5 March ...

  05 March 2013 | Keith Alcorn

• Hospital exposure the source of XDR-TB infections, underlining the need for adequate infection control

  Numerous hospital transmissions – rather than a single source – fuelled the outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) at Tugela Ferry, South Africa, in 2005-06, research published in the online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases shows. Epidemiological ...

  30 January 2013 | Michael Carter

• Huge differences in HIV mortality rates in US according to race, social and economic status

  New US research has revealed enormous differences in HIV mortality rates between patients according to their race and social and economic status. Published in the online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study showed that mortality rates ...

  19 October 2012 | Michael Carter

• From today, HIV treatment is free for all who need it in England

  The removal of charges for undocumented migrants and non-UK citizens accessing HIV treatment and care in England comes into effect today. From now on, HIV treatment will be provided free of charge to all who need it, regardless of ...

  01 October 2012 | Roger Pebody

• US youth, heterosexual men and African Americans losing out on HIV treatment benefits

  A new study presented at the 19th International AIDS Conference shows that young people, African Americans, and heterosexual men have particularly low rates of retention in care and viral suppression and that there are also inequalities between cities. A previous study published ...

  08 August 2012 | Gus Cairns

• Intellectual property “still a threat,” to antiretroviral access, says panel

  Patents and intellectual property restrictions continue to affect access to antiretroviral drugs, particularly in middle-income settings, according to research presented at the 19th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington DC on July 25. While generic competition has ...

  26 July 2012 | Mara Kardas-Nelson

• Dramatic increases in life expectancy in a high-burden HIV setting due to ARV rollout

  The first evidence of dramatic changes in adult life expectancy in an HIV-endemic region, from individually measured data in a complete population cohort, showed large increases in adult life expectancy since the roll-out of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. The survival benefits ...

  25 July 2012 | Lesley Odendal

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Access to medicines and treatment news selected from other sources

• Congress Cuts Funding For State ADAP Programs

  The failure of a US Senate spending bill to include $35 million in funding for HIV medications will jeopardize the ability of state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs to offer prescription drugs to nearly 8,000 low-income people living with the virus, according to patient advocates.

  10 hours ago | Pharmalot

• Sluggish response risks squandering historic opportunity to tackle global drug-resistant tuberculosis

  If measures to tackle multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are not significantly stepped up, including addressing barriers that prevent both research into better drug combinations and treatment scale up, MDR-TB rates will continue to increase worldwide and a historic opportunity to improve abysmal cure rates will have been squandered, medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned today.

  20 March 2013 | MSF

• Athens urged to import generic drugs

  Public health advocates are petitioning the Greek government to overturn patent protection on costly medicines and import them from low-cost generic producers to ease the burden on the country’s medical system.

  18 March 2013 | Financial Times

• Global Drug Facility achieves price reduction for drug-resistant TB treatments

  The Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility has reduced the price of several second-line drugs it supplies for the treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) by up to 26% compared to 2011 prices, resulting in a decrease in the overall cost of treatment.

  18 March 2013 | Stop TB Partnership

• GlaxoSmithKline boss says new drugs can be cheaper

  The pharmaceutical industry should be able to charge less for new drugs in future by passing on efficiencies in research and development to its customers, according to the chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

  18 March 2013 | Reuters

• Uganda government under pressure to boost ARV funding

  The Ugandan government's draft 2013/2014 budget allocates US$38.5 million to enrol a further 100,000 people living with HIV on life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. But activists say the money, while welcome in a country still largely dependent on donor funds for its HIV programmes, is not sufficient to meet treatment needs.

  15 March 2013 | IRIN Plus News

• Health Canada rejects tesamorelin for lipodystrophy

  After consideration of the NDS, Health Canada decided that the risks of tesamorelin outweighed its benefits under the proposed conditions of use.

  13 March 2013 | Theratechnologies press release

• Third-line ARVs could widen treatment gap in Zimbabwe

  HIV/AIDS activists in Zimbabwe have welcomed the government's move to address the problem of HIV drug resistance by introducing third-line antiretroviral drug (ARVs). But it remains unclear how the cash-strapped government will finance this, as procuring the drugs will invariably be expensive and could divert resources away from other HIV treatment efforts.

  12 March 2013 | IRIN Plus News

• West Virginia Advances Bill to Charge for HIV Testing

  With pressure from lessening federal funds driving their actions, the West Virginia Senate pushed forward a bill on March 7 that would allow local health departments to charge individuals fees for STD testing.

  12 March 2013 | CDC National Prevention Information Network

• Panic in Greek pharmacies as hundreds of medicines run short

  Greece is facing a serious shortage of medicines amid claims that pharmaceutical multinationals have halted shipments to the country because of the economic crisis and concerns that the drugs will be exported by middlemen because prices are higher in other European countries.

  05 March 2013 | The Guardian

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