Although great strides have been made in scaling up treatment for HIV/AIDS in developing countries over the last ten years, international support is now faltering and funding shortfalls for treatment programmes are now threatening to undo the success achieved to date. Today, four million people are on life-saving antiretroviral medicines but there are ten million more in need of treatment.
There is a need to bridge the gap between the standard of care received in wealthy countries and that in developing world. The majority of people on AIDS treatment in developing countries receive a regimen known to cause serious side effects, and which the World Health Organization no longer favours. Also, lifelong AIDS treatment requires constant access to newer and more potent regimens as patients develop resistance to their medicines over time. Access to expensive second- and third-line regimens in developing countries needs to be secured.
Paediatric AIDS has nearly disappeared in developed countries, thus removing the market incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in new drug formulations for children. The alarming rate of child infection would decrease if prevention programmes to stop the transmission of the HIV virus from mother to child were implemented as successfully in developing countries as they are in Europe and the United States. In all developing countries, the treatment options available for babies, young children and adolescents with HIV/AIDS remain very restricted. Furthermore, with the current methods available, diagnosing the disease in the early months of a child’s life is impossible in many of the places we work.
Despite evidence of the broad benefits of ART, we are witnessing alarming backtracking from international donors just as efforts should be ramped up. The funding available is not keeping up with the need, and MSF is already witnessing the negative impact this is having in some countries, with care rationed because of limited treatment slots, treatment scale-up halted for those in urgent need, and an even more distant promise of universal access.
If the battle against HIV/AIDS is to be won, there is a need to continue to fund the scale-up of therapy and stop the current U-turn on AIDS treatment. MSF is working to address the needs within its own programmes and is advocating for wider implementation.
via the Doctors Without Borders website AIDS2010
(via caraobrien)
Maybe our children will grow up stronger, more resilient, with values that center less on money and more on relationships and meaning. Maybe they’ll be more prepared to live well in an unpredictable world, learn craftsmanship as they build or fix their own toys, imagination as they invent their own games, and initiative as they find creative solutions to their own boredom.
And maybe we’ll all gain some compassion as we learn to adapt to our own circumstances and as we watch others adapt to theirs.
