Ten times more in Africa get HIV drugs: report

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

TORONTO (Reuters) – Ten times more people in Africa are
getting life-saving HIV drugs than did three years ago, but
most still get no treatment and the pandemic is spreading, the
World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

More than a million people in sub-Saharan Africa now
receive drugs that help many with the virus live normal lives,
but globally only 24 percent of those who should be taking the
drugs get them, the report said.

The findings suggest that a push has worked, at least
partly, to get lifesaving drugs to the people who need them,
WHO HIV/AIDS Director Dr. Kevin De Cock told the 16th
International AIDS Conference.

“WHO estimated there were 1.65 million people on
antiretroviral therapy in low and middle income settings,
including over 1 million in Africa,” De Cock told a news
conference.

The AIDS virus infects nearly 39 million people globally,
and has killed 25 million people since it was identified 25
years ago. Virtually all — 95 percent — of people infected
with the virus live in the developing world.

There is no vaccine.

At the end of 2003, 100,000 people in Africa were being
treated — about 3 percent to 4 percent of those who needed the
drugs to stay alive, De Cock said.

WHO, the United States, Medecins Sans Frontieres, former
U.S. president Bill Clinton’s foundation, the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and others have worked to
drive down the costs of the drugs, provide generic versions for
poor countries and get the drugs distributed.

PILLS

New formulations mean patients no longer have to take a
dozen pills a day at precise times. Many are combined into
single pills that can be taken once or twice a day.

“In low- and middle-income countries, just over 1.6 million
persons were receiving antiretroviral therapy at the end of
June 2006, a 24 percent increase over the 1.3 million who had
access to the drugs in December 2005, and four times the
400,000 people receiving treatment in these countries in
December 2003,” De Cock said.

About 6.8 million people living in low- and middle-income
countries need the drugs, which usually are not prescribed
until the virus starts to affect the immune system
significantly.

Children are especially poorly served, with pediatric
formulations of HIV drugs still costing far more than adult
versions.

“An estimated 800,000 children below the age of 15 require
antiretroviral therapy, the vast majority in Africa,” De Cock
said. Only about 60,000 to 100,000 receive it.

He said fewer than 10 percent of HIV-infected pregnant
women in low and middle income countries get the pills that can
protect their newborns from the virus.

In contrast, WHO said, pediatric HIV disease has been
virtually eliminated in the industrialized world.

(For more stories related to the Toronto international AIDS
Conference, please go to

http://today.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage.aspx?type=aids&src=

GLOBALCOVERAGE_wire)