PRNewswire - November 29, 2007

-- Reports from Zimbabwe and Russia show progress in access to AIDS treatment, but significant barriers remain

BOSTON, HARARE, Zimbabwe, and MOSCOW, Nov. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) released a new report on AIDS treatment scale up on a global conference call this week. The report, Missing the Target #5: Improving AIDS Drug Access and Advancing Health Care for All, is available at www.aidstreatmentaccess.org. It reviews issues impeding AIDS drug access in 14 countries and makes recommendations to governments and global institutions.

Highlights from the November 27 media teleconference to release the report:

Dr. Jim Yong Kim, Director of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB) at Harvard University.

"With HIV, we set very bold targets that represented delivering chronic care for the whole of a person's life in the poorest countries in the world. That was an entirely new target.... To set a target for a chronic care intervention was absolutely revolutionary and got us moving and actually doing things on the ground that we've never seen before in developing countries.

"We've moved from a very minimalist notion of what can be done in developing countries to one that is much more robust. For example, Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization is talking about comprehensive primary care for everyone in a way that's much more serious than the original 1978 declaration of health for all.

"We've now got to be much more serious about figuring out how to make it all work together.... Rather than having to recreate a new system for malaria services or a new system for HIV services, we need to develop functional primary health care systems that can deliver any new tool that comes along or any drugs we are able to procure. That's got to be the new target.

"Advocates and others have pushed the HIV movement so far that we've found ourselves in this extraordinary position of really seriously talking about comprehensive primary care for poor people in the poorest countries for the first time in history."

Matilda Moyo, a co-author of the Zimbabwe chapter

"Today, 91,000 people in Zimbabwe are getting ART. The government targets of providing treatment for 120,000 people is less than half of the 260,000 people who need treatment.... While the government may meet its targets, that still will not provide for all of those who are in need of access to treatment.

"Last July, when we did the first Missing the Target report from Zimbabwe, about 10,000 people were sponsoring their own treatment, but it is estimated now that that number has gone down to only 6,000. So fewer people are able to afford treatment as the economic situation in Zimbabwe worsens.

"Zimbabwe did not get Global Fund funding in Round 7 and yet the Global Fund has been one of the major funders of treatment in the country. Also, Zimbabwe is under targeted sanctions. So unlike other countries in the region that receive US$ 200- 400 in per capita donor funding every year, Zimbabwe receives only $10 per person. This is unsustainable. Our report recommends that the Global Fund and multilateral agencies put more resources into treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, especially considering that the targeted sanctions actually hurt the general populous rather than the leadership they seek to punish."

Shona Schonning, a co-author of the Russia chapter

"In Russia there are 10 times more people on treatment than there were only four years ago. And the bulk of the treatment is being funded by the Russian government, which is really a gigantic step ahead. But still we see in Russia, and the region of Eastern Europe, relatively low levels of access to AIDS treatment. Eastern Europe has the second lowest access to ART on the planet.

"In Russia, the relatively low level of access to care is not because the drugs are not there and not because the money isn't there. It is largely because the services to deliver the drugs have not been adequately built and are not being designed to cater to the needs of the vulnerable groups that are most in need of care. The epidemic is mostly among injecting drug users, a group that is highly stigmatized.

"Russia is one of only a few countries in the region where opiate substitution therapy, which is recommended by WHO, is still illegal, and the current political climate makes it difficult for advocates to even discuss the issue. The lack of substitution therapy, other social services, addiction care, and integrated services for IDUS remains woefully underdeveloped in Russia. And the result is that people are beginning to die of AIDS in Russia in an age when ART should be made available to them."

Gregg Gonsalves, AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) and report co-coordinator

"We realize that the success and scale up of AIDS treatment is dependent on the success and scale up of health services in general. That means we must make sure we have trained health care workers, successful health clinics, integration of services and that the provision of drugs, diagnostics and other commodities is streamlined, and drug registration, procurement and supply management is harmonized. These are all things that crisscross health systems.

"AIDS has become the driving wedge for mobilizing people around healthcare in many countries. It has built consumer engagement in health care and marshaled public support for providing interventions that were once thought not to be cost-effective for millions of people around the world. It has become the foundation for developing new systems of health care in many countries."

Chris Collins, report project coordinator

"We have seen that treatment can be delivered effectively, save lives and transform people's relationship to health services. We also have seen that AIDS drug treatment can't be understood in a vacuum. Effective treatment depends on other services and supports, like accessible health clinics, subsidies for truly free treatment, and nutrition services. HIV treatment and prevention also must be more fully integrated."

The teleconference is available for replay by calling 800-642-1687 in the US or Canada or +1-706-645-9291 internationally. The conference ID number is 25762460.

About the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition

The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) was born out of the International Treatment Preparedness Summit that took place in Cape Town, South Africa in March 2003. That meeting brought together for the first time community-based HIV treatment activists and educators from over 60 countries. Since the Summit, ITPC has grown to include more than 1,000 activists from over 125 countries and has emerged as a leading civil society coalition on treatment preparedness and access issues.

Source: International Treatment Preparedness Coalition

CONTACT: Chris Collins, +1-845-701-0158, ChrisCSF@aol.com, or Kay Marshall, +1-347-249-6375, kaymarshall@mac.com, both of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition

Web Site: http://www.aidstreatmentaccess.org/

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