2 June 2008 | GENEVA -- Nearly 3 million people are now receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in low-income and middle-income countries worldwide. The increase is announced in a new  report, Towards universal access: scaling up priority HIV/AIDS interventions in the health sector, jointly launched today by WHO, UNAIDS and UNICEF. The chairman of UNITAID's Executive Board, Philippe Douste-Blazy, today underlined the progress described in the report, including improved access to programmes aimed at preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT).

Since its inception in September 2006, UNITAID has worked in a complementary manner with the institutions of the United Nations and other international organizations to scale up access to antiretroviral treatments by increasing availability of quality medicines at lowest prices. UNITAID has committed US$ 200 million to provide diagnostics and antiretroviral treatments for children and adults who have developed resistance to first-line treatments, and to scale up prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

To date, more than 140 000 children, including 70 000 new children, are receiving antiretroviral treatment through UNITAID funding. UNITAID also provides second-line antiretroviral treatment to more than 70 000 patients in 23 countries, 20 of them in Africa.

In partnership with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative, UNITAID has funded actions that have also made 11 more antiretroviral formulations available to patients, and that have reduced prices cumulatively by an average of more than 60% on paediatric and over 30% on second-line antiretroviral medicines in low-income countries.

At the end of 2007, UNITAID and UNICEF launched a joint initiative to help scale up national programmes to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. UNITAID will fund HIV diagnostics, antiretroviral medicines and antibiotics for patients in the target countries for a period of up to 24 months, up to the amount of US$ 21 million. On an initial basis, eight countries are set to benefit from this initiative: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte dIvoire, India, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. At least one million pregnant women will have access to HIV diagnostics and, if they are infected, to ART that will prevent transmission to their newborns.

In order to ensure that participating countries will be supplied with high quality medicines, UNITAID is supporting the UN/WHO Prequalification Programme which permits the assessment and approval of priority medicines. Since the end of 2006, 37 medicinal products have been added to the list of prequalified medicines; 16 products are UNITAID priority medicines for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

More information:
-  Full report on WHO Website