AIDS Drugs Patent Pool Opens Easy Access for Poor Patients

Access to HIV drugs is a problem that came out along with the emergence of HIV/AIDS medications in developing countries, more notably in severely stricken lands such as Africa. And every time a drug is approved, poor countries in Asia, Africa and the rest of the world have to wait for several years before the new drug can become available in their area. With the makers of HIV drugs sharing intellectual property right with others, AIDS victims in these areas could soon get easier access to their most needed treatment medications.

Led by Gilead Sciences, the largest maker of HIV drugs, the Medicine Patent Pool expects to get other big drug makers to also sign-up. It is looking forward for get ViiV Healthcare, Squibb, Roche, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sequoia Pharmaceuticals, and more. If the patent pool gets the same deal from these drug makers, even the poorest among the 33 million HIV positive individuals will be able to afford AIDS medicines. It will create the kind of system that grants license technology to the patent holders, authorizing them to manufacture cheap generics, with modest royalties as payment.

With the existence of cheaper and more generics AIDS drugs, the flow of necessary medication to different poor countries across the horizon will become faster. Big pharmacies will get very little royalties especially in African countries, wherein generics drugs fall only at 1 or 2 percent of those in developed or high-income countries. It will be like a big uniform discount for usually high-priced branded products. But with such a sacrifice and success of the pool, poor countries can have an estimated savings of $1 billion annual drug spending.

Generic copies of tenofovir, emtricitabine, as well as the upcoming cobicistat, elvitegravir, and Quad were allowed by Gilead. Quad, in particular, is the combination of the different AIDS treatment drugs.

UNITAID, a health financing system, launched the medicine patent pool. And the U.S. National Institutes of Health was the first to sign-up in the pool in September, which was recently followed by Gilead Sciences.

This patent pool will not only benefit HIV patients, but also the health care industry in the said countries that have long been struggling with the high HIV infection rate as well as AIDS mortality rate and related deaths.

H1N1 Deaths Climb in Greece

Death toll due to H1N1 climbs to 100 in Greece, and is expected to further rise until next month, as the flu season heats up in the country and causing a high-intensity flu activity. In the past 24 hours alone, H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, claimed 12 lives. Further, 127 newly confirmed cases of the potentially fatal flu strain are within the care of professionals in lab coats across Greece.

Statistics regarding the reported cases show that the average age of patients who contracted the strain is 54. Of these patients, males were more vulnerable, comprising 57 percent of the cases. Presently, the number of flu cases in the country already double last year’s.

Scientists in Greece put the blame of the significant increase of H1N1 flu deaths in the country to the small percentage of individuals who got vaccinated before the flu season. This year, there was only 8.5% Greek citizens who got flu vaccine. But getting the vaccine is not too late f or everyone. Most medical institutions have healthcare workers who are ready with their uniforms scrubs to administer vaccination to all Greeks, especially individuals in high-risk group such as the elderly.

Besides Greece, influenza activity is at high-intensity activity in European countries like Hungary, Italy and Sweden. 19 countries show medium levels, including Scotland. Things are looking better in Cyprus, Malta and United Kingdom, wherein activity is low. Very high-intensity of influenza activity hits Luxemburg, though. Austria, Czech, Iceland and Slovakia report an increase in flu cases, while there was a decline in 14 other countries. 10 others report no change in flu activity.