12 December 2012 - Mika, M, BB Brune and the “crème de la crème” of the French rock scene took a second this Saturday to say “merci” to the millions of French travellers that have helped saved lives through UNITAID.

UNITAID was honoured at the first ever “Virgin Radio Fans” in Paris, a live show that is the only event in the world where artists thank their fans. Almost 500,000 fans from throughout France competed to be the “best fan” and a select few were chosen to meet their idols on stage. During the live show, Presenter Cyril Hanouna also thanked UNITAID for its efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis while footage of UNITAID’s actions on the ground was shown – as teenage singing sensation Birdy serenaded the audience.

12 Décembre 2012, Mika, M, BB Brune et la "crème de la crème" de la scène rock française ont pris une seconde ce samedi pour dire "merci" aux millions de voyageurs français qui ont aidé à sauver des vies grâce à UNITAID.
UNITAID a été mis à l'honneur lors de la toute première émission "Virgin Radio Fans" à Paris, seul événement télévisé au monde où les artistes remercient leurs fans. Près de 500 000 fans de toute la France ont concouru au titre de "meilleur fan" et quelques privilégiés ont été choisis pour rencontrer leur idole sur scène. Au cours de l'émission en direct, le présentateur Cyril Hanouna a également remercié UNITAID pour ses actions dans la lutte contre le VIH/sida, le paludisme et la tuberculose, en même temps qu'étaient projetées des images des activités d'UNITAID sur le terrain – alors que la jeune chanteuse Birdy faisait sensation auprès de l'audience en chanson.

UNITAID and PPD (Partners in Population and Development) exchanged a framework of collaboration for partnership in advocating and extending the benefits of UNITAID to the PPD member countries which account for nearly 60% of the world’s population. PPD is an ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development) support platform under the South—South Cooperation movement, membered by 25 countries. Dr. Denis Broun, Executive Director, UNITAID and Dr. Joe Thomas, Executive Director, PPD signed on behalf of their respective agencies and exchanged the documents.

A quelques semaines de la Journée mondiale contre le sida le 1^er décembre 2012, Air France informe ses clients que tous ceux ayant voyagé au départ de la France ont contribué à sauver des vies face au VIH/sida.

Pendant le mois de novembre, Air France ajoutera une bannière UNITAID aux 900 000 courriels adressés à ses passagers 30 heures avant leur départ, les remerciant de leur contribution à la lutte mondiale contre le VIH/sida mais aussi contre la tuberculose et le paludisme.

In the run-up to World AIDS Day on 1 December 2012, Air France is letting its customers know that those departing from France have helped save lives from HIV/AIDS.

For the month of November, Air France is adding a UNITAID banner to all its 900,000 pre-flight emails to travellers thanking them for their contribution to the global fight against HIV/AIDS, as well as tuberculosis and malaria.

12 October 2012 – Prompt, accurate diagnosis of malaria is a cornerstone of malaria case management; patients recover rapidly if diagnosed and treated early. However, if treatment is ineffective or delayed, malaria may rapidly progress to severe disease. The use of diagnostics for malaria is rapidly expanding due to recent changes in treatment guidelines that have spurred donors and programs to increase their investments in malaria RDTs. As this scale-up expands, it becomes increasingly important to understand and monitor the market for these important public health commodities.

"Les vraies raisons du changement: better, faster and cheaper access to medicines"

Below is UNITAID’s response to a post on the Global Health Policy Blog entilted "Should UNITAID Rethink Its Raison d’Être?"

19 September 2012 - Fan and Silverman’s essay argues that the way in which UNITAID allocates funds to HIV, TB and malaria should be based on arguments of fairness and justice and not just of the “market”. UNITAID has a mandate to support better, faster, cheaper access to treatment. We were founded to bring the best solution to people in low-income countries based on the premise that they should have access, at low or no cost, to the same types of treatments and tests that those in higher-income countries have come to rely upon. UNITAID facilitates the efforts of the much larger global public health funders (GFATM, PEPFAR and others) to scale up access to tests and treatments for HIV, TB and malaria.

This is our vision of fairness and justice.

05 September 2012 - UNITAID founding countries Brazil and Chile pledged their ongoing support to UNITAID in a series of high-level meetings last August. Executive Director Denis Broun and Director of Operations Raquel Child led UNITAID’s visit to Brazil and Chile, which resulted in a series of exciting joint ventures between UNITAID and these two key actors in global health.

Latin America and UNITAID - A new way forward

UNITAID’s delegation met with Dr. Alexandre Padilha, Brazilian Minister of Health and Dr. Jorge Díaz, Undersecretary for Public Health at the Chilean Ministry of Health. Both officials reiterated their countries’ long-standing commitment to UNITAID since its founding in 2006. Moreover, Brazil and Chile noted that ministerial support for UNITAID is not only limited to  the Ministry of Health – now Ministries of Foreign Affairs were also involved in governing UNITAID.

Both countries also acknowledged UNITAID’s impact on health care markets in Latin America. Brazilian officials pointed out UNITAID’s recent announcement of a significant price reduction for a new rapid diagnostic test for tuberculosis, the Xpert MTB/RIF assay. Brazil will use this cheaper price to increase rapid TB screening in high-risk areas within its own country, including poor communities and prison settings.

Chile was the first country to adopt UNITAID’s air ticket levy and Brazil donates from its treasury budget the equivalent of US$ 2 per international flight.

Technical cooperation

The UNITAID delegation also met with the heads of the development agencies for both countries - Ambassador Fernando José Marroni de Abreu, Director of the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation and Jorge Daccarett, Executive Director of the Chilean International Cooperation Agency. Both agencies agreed to provide technical support to UNITAID-supported countries on best use of health products. Brazil will concentrate on supporting UNITAID in Lusophone countries in Africa while Chile will focus on Latin American countries.

Engaging local generic producers

The UNITAID delegation discussed joint opportunities with the emerging generic industries in both countries – a sector which has contributed to increased access to life-saving drugs in Latin America and abroad.

In Brazil, local generic manufacturers have contributed to the country’s success story in providing HIV treatment. Brazil provides free antiretroviral treatment to around 220,000 people living with HIV—a coverage of 69%. The UNITAID delegation visited Far-Manguinhos, a government-run laboratory which is Brazil’s main producer of HIV antiretrovirals. UNITAID discussed pursuing a joint project with the Brazilian government in order to have them participate in UNITAID tenders.

Chile has Latin America’s largest generics market and UNITAID also agreed to pursue joint opportunities with the country’s private generics industry.

Working with local universities

On August 30^th, Executive Director Broun discussed innovative finance and UNITAID’s role with professors and students at a special session organized by the University of Chile’s School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine. UNITAID will continue to work with the University on market dynamics issues for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

UNITAID also agreed to pursue joint projects with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, which is considered one of the world’s top public health research and development institutions.

PEPFAR, USAID, UNITAID and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have finalized an agreement to expand access to GeneXpert®, a molecular diagnostic system that provides a two-hour rapid diagnosis of TB, TB/HIV co-infection and drug-resistant TB.

WASHINGTON – August 6, 2012 – Today, the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), UNITAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced an agreement that will significantly reduce the cost of a new, highly accurate, rapid diagnostic test for tuberculosis (TB) in 145 high-burden and developing countries.

Funds provided by this partnership will reduce the cost of Xpert MTB/RIF cartridges from $16.86 to $9.98, a price which will not increase until 2022. The effective date of this price decrease is August 6, 2012.
To date, the high unit cost of Xpert® MTB/RIF cartridges produced by the medical device manufacturer Cepheid has proven a barrier to their introduction and widespread use in low- and middle-income countries. The new agreement will immediately reduce the cost of cartridges used to diagnose TB by more than 40 percent.

In December 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the Cepheid product, known as Xpert MTB/RIF assay, which is run on Cepheid's GeneXpert platform. Until Cepheid developed the Xpert MTB/RIF assay, the only method used in most laboratories in developing countries was smear microscopy, a technique first developed in the 1880s by the German bacteriologist Robert Koch that requires visual detection of the TB bacterium under a microscope.

Smear microscopy is particularly insensitive for diagnosing TB in patients who are co-infected with HIV. It also does not help clinicians detect the presence of drug-resistant strains of TB. The limitations of traditional smear microscopy, along with the cost and long delays to receive culture results, have limited the ability to diagnose and treat TB and drug-resistant forms of the disease.

Cepheid's GeneXpert is a molecular diagnostic system that can detect TB disease in patients co-infected with HIV and resistance to the antibiotic rifampicin – a widely accepted indicator of the presence of multi-drug resistant TB – in less than two hours. The system also can be used outside of conventional laboratories because it is self-contained and does not require specialized training.

Because TB is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV in Africa, greater access to this test offers a significant advance in the capacity of health care workers to diagnose TB quickly and help reduce TB transmission, the development of TB disease, and premature TB deaths.

The capacity of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay to yield a rapid and accurate diagnosis has the potential to improve TB diagnosis and treatment in rural clinical settings. A large percentage of people with TB disease fail to start treatment promptly because of the long wait for results of older conventional tests and the need for them to return to the clinic, which may be far from where they live. Using the GeneXpert system, clinics in poor and rural settings can deliver rapid diagnosis and immediately start patients on appropriate treatment, including
second-line drugs in cases of drug-resistant.

Research suggests that the incremental scale up of GeneXpert in countries with high TB burdens could allow for the rapid diagnosis of 700,000 cases of TB disease and save health systems in low- and middle-income countries more than U.S. $18 million in direct health costs.

MEDIA ADVISORY

19 July 2012 - A new set of investments by global health initiative UNITAID will revolutionize the HIV/AIDS response in low-income countries by bringing new and advanced HIV diagnostics to patients in the most remote communities.

UNITAID will be announcing one of the largest investments yet in these "point-of-care" HIV diagnostics on July 23rd at the International Aids Conference, along with its implementers for these projects: Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), UNICEF and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI).

These partners will discuss how UNITAID's unique market intervention approach will be used to accelerate market entry and reduce the price of technologies that move HIV diagnostics away from centralized testing facilities closer to the point of patient care. Experts will be available for interviews about these devises – both existing and emerging – which improve diagnosis, treatment and care of persons living with HIV and are suitable for resource-limited settings.

Join us at the International AIDS Conference, Washington DC, on Monday July 23rd 2012 at 2:00 pm in Press Conference Room 2, Walter E. Washington Convention Center for a Press Conference to hear about the strategy for introducing innovative new diagnostics for HIV as part of the HIV response.

Speakers:
Denis Broun, Executive Director, UNITAID
Teri Roberts, Diagnostics Advisor, MSF Access Campaign
Craig McClure, Chief, HIV/AIDS Section, UNICEF
David Ripin, Executive Vice President of Access Programs and Chief Scientific Officer, CHAI

Contact: Sarah Mascheroni, UNITAID, +41 79 728 73 11, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Twitter Hashtag: #DecadeOfDiagnostics