Who does HIV/AIDS affect?AIDS affects millions of people all over the world and has orphaned thirteen million children. An estimated 40 million people are currently infected with HIV worldwide, 95% of whom live in the developing world. In some of the poorest countries, one in every five adults is infected with HIV. AIDS also effects the economic development of countries as it often strikes people during their most productive working years. While medical developments have helped those in the industrialised world, life-extending drugs remain out of reach for the vast majority of HIV positive people. Without the appropriate medicines, prevention efforts are severely limited and treatment is impossible.
What is anti-retroviral treatment (ART)?Anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS which stop the virus from replicating, but do not kill it. Although they do not cure HIV/AIDS, ARV drugs can improve patients’ quality of life and prolong survival. This treatment is still not widely available in developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 1 million people on ART in the developing world today. Experience from places where ART has long been widely available, such as Brazil, the US or Europe, shows that after a few years, the "first-line" of ART no longer works for many patients, who must then switch onto a "second-line" treatment. However, second-line drugs are far more expensive than first-line drugs. In Kenya, for example, MSF pays seven times more for second line treatment ($1400 per patient/year) than for first line treatment ($200). In Guatemala, second-line treatment costs 28 times more than the first-line treatment.
What are the challenges to treating HIV/AIDS?The high price of medicines is one of many barriers to providing ARV treatment for people living with AIDS in developing countries. Other barriers include political will, social stigma, health infrastructure, and insufficient funding.
How do I know this?MSF Access Campaign,
http://www.accessmed-msf.org/index.aspMSF Sydney,
http://www.msf.org.au/MSF-US,
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/malaria/...MSF-US 2005,
The Second Wave of the Access Crisis: Unaffordable AIDS Drug Prices... Again, 10 December,
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/hiv-aids...This page was written in conjunction with MSF Australia
