Angry Faces 2010

Alongside World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) continues its "Angry Faces" campaign. The campaign's goal is to raise awareness about the lack of access to treatment for millions of people living with HIV/AIDS.

MSF is sharing here five reasons to be angry about this preventable situation. We invite you to snap a picture of your angry  face, and post it on the Angry Faces group on Facebook.

Join the MSF "Angry Faces" Facebook group and be part of the campaign wherever you are!

HIV/AIDS treatment access: 5 reasons to get angry!

AIDS has become a threat to the very existence of many populations. An estimated 40 million people are currently infected with the HIV virus worldwide, 95 per cent of whom live in the developing world. In some of the poorest countries, one in every five adults is infected with HIV. People living with HIV need life-extending antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) when their immune system becomes severely weakened by the virus. While access to ARVs offers hope and life in the industrialized world, they remain out of reach for the vast majority of the people who need them in the developing world.

HIV/AIDS is treatable, but millions of people are still waiting.

1. Two thirds of people with HIV in developing countries who need ARVs have no access to treatment

In 2009 an estimated 15 million people worldwide (including 660,000 children) needed ARVs. While 5.2 million received them, an additional 10 million were in immediate clinical need. Coverage is even lower for children, with only 28 per cent of children in need receiving ARVs.

2. Most HIV infections in infants and small children could have been prevented.
Mothers with HIV have up to a 45 per cent chance of passing the virus to their babies during pregnancy, birth or while breast feeding. Treatment exists to minimize this risk to two per cent. Only 53 per cent of mothers receive this. Without treatment, half of babies born with HIV in poor countries die before their second birthday. Diagnosis and treatment of HIV in children is hampered by insufficient pediatric tools adapted for use in the developing world. New tools now make it possible to diagnose HIV in babies, but their cost and complexity put them out of reach for the children who need them.

3. All talk but no action. Rich countries don’t fulfil their responsibilities.
In 2005, G8 leaders pledged to create near universal access to HIV treatment, prevention and care by 2010. But donors are now flatlining AIDS funding and walking away from previous commitments to scale up treatment. The Global Fund recently received only $11.7 billion in pledges, compared to the $20 billion it has said it needed. The U.S.-funded President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program, which supports at least half of all people on HIV/AIDS treatment in developing countries, is flatlining funding for the third year in a row.

4. Because of trade policies, the prices of newer medicines are set to go through the roof.
Patients need access to new treatment when resistance to medication naturally develops. Thanks to generic competition, a first-line drug now costs less than $100 per year per patient. But rich countries are working to give unfair advantages to companies that make patented products, limiting access to generic medicines and raising prices.  Eighty per cent of the AIDS medicines MSF uses to treat 160,000 people come from generic producers in India, the so-called ‘pharmacy of the developing world,’ But as a part of free trade agreement negotiations with India, Europe is pushing for policies such as ‘data exclusivity,’ which would act to restrict generic producers’ ability to put more affordable generic medicines on the market.  If the EU wins, access to affordable generic versions of newer medicines needed to tackle HIV/AIDS will be severely compromised.

5. New treatment recommendations and promising science likely to remain ignored
There is new evidence that shows that putting more people on treatment, with better drugs, earlier, saves lives and prevents new infections. Data just published from MSF’s project in Lesotho shows the value of this new strategy: providing people with treatment earlier led to a 68 per cent reduction in deaths, a 27 per cent reduction in new diseases, a 63 per cent reduction in hospitalization, and a 39 per cent reduction in people defaulting from care.  But just as the scientific evidence for a more ambitious response to AIDS is coming in, AIDS funding is stagnating, and the price of new medicines are set to rise: MSF and other AIDS treatment providers are being dealt a double blow.