Countries that have signed an agreement to support UNITAID in the future include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Senegal, São Tomé and Principe, South Africa and Togo.
"UNITAID is a brilliant and innovative approach for a collecting funds for health commodities which will be sustained as long as people keep flying. As such these funds are less vulnerable to political decisions and developmental budgets and their flexibility means they can be tapped immediately if necessary to save lives and safeguard services."
-Professor Awa Marie Coll-Seck,
Executive Director, Roll Back Malaria Partnership
Because UNITAID funds come from innovative additional sources that are sustainable and predictable, the organization impacts on the market in a way that expands access to more and better patient-adapted products. The viable business model based on long-term forecasting enables UNITAID to guarantee high volume purchases and pool procurement, which in turn encourages manufacturers to invest in the development of new medicines and high-volume production. As a result, prices come down and UNITAID and its partners can supply more medicines and diagnostics to patients.
For example, the price reduction obtained by CHAI for paediatric antiretroviral medicines since November 2006 has enabled three times more children living with HIV/AIDS to be treated for the same amount of money. UNITAID funding has also enabled the development of new medicines that are better adapted to patients’ needs, for example, fixed-dose combination (FDC) treatments that combine several medicines into one pill, rather than several tablets a day.
93countriesreceiveUNITAIDfunding |
