By Martin Banks - 8th June 2011
With more than six million lives saved there is a lot to show for the last ten years of effort
Médecins Sans Frontières
A new report calls for urgent action to plug the "treatment gap" facing Aids and HIV sufferers.
The report, published on Monday at a news conference in Brussels, said there had been "important progress" in tackling the disease but that a "treatment gap endures."
It goes on to warn that an additional ten million people are "still in urgent need of treatment and many will die within just a few years if left untreated."
The report, compiled by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), calls for "more mobilisation of domestic and external resources" to help sufferers.
Its publication comes as governments from around the world prepare to meet to draw up a blueprint for tackling HIV/AIDS at a high-level UN meeting in New York later this week (8 to 10 June).
It follows a recent pledge by Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general of the UN, to treat 13 million with the disease by 2015.
The report details MSF’s experience in implementing treatment strategies to improve care and reduce costs for patients and health systems.
It presents the results of a survey conducted by MSF teams in 16 countries where the aid organisation works.
The 16 countries represent a mix of low, general and hyper-endemic countries and together account for 52.5 per cent of the global HIV/AIDS burden.
The report says, "The progress they have achieved in implementing WHO treatment guidelines as well as other important strategies to increase access to treatment, provides an important window into the current strengths and
weaknesses of the international response to HIV/AIDS.
"Most countries now have policies to better manage the co-epidemics of HIV and TB, to integrate HIV and maternal services and to bring care closer to where people live, using existing facilities and health care workers."
However, it adds, "But most HIV-prevalent countries are still struggling to reach more than 50 per cent of people in need."
"The progress thus far would not have been possible without external financial support, but it will take more mobilisation of domestic and external resources so that the population benefits in reducing infections, deaths, and illness can be fully realised."
The report says that "with more than six million lives saved there is a lot to show for the last ten years of effort …. but even more can be done in the next decade."
It says governments "must recommit" to their past promises to bring life-saving treatment to all in need and support an "ambitious" treatment target.
MSF also recommend a reduction in the burden on patients and on health systems, support lowering the costs of drugs, and foster the needed medical innovation.
