UK Parliament Report: Health Access A ‘Treatment Timebomb’

“Maintaining HIV/AIDS treatment to keep people alive will cripple developing economies, or place unbearable strains on richer countries trying to support them and action is needed now, to avert crisis later,” says a report released this week by a cross-cutting parliamentary group in the United Kingdom. The All Party Parliamentary Group on AIDS, a backbench (non-Cabinet) cross-party group of Members of Parliament and Peers, issued an urgent call to explore new methods of stimulating and financing the production of new HIV/AIDS drugs. The report notes that people living with AIDS will need a lifetime of treatment and the evolving nature of the disease will require newer drugs. Immediate intervention is required to ensure that new medicines remain affordable, and the report recommends the use of tools such as patent pools and research and development funds. UNITAID, a drug purchasing mechanism, welcomed the report in a statement.

A copy of the report is available here.