UNAIDS HIV Drug Access Initiative: Providing Wider Access to HIV-related Drugs in Developing Countries, Pilot Phase

- identifying innovative private and public sector funding mechanisms
- building public/private sector partnerships
- creating an appropriate environment for increased health care
spending by building and improving channels for health care delivery
- generating social, economic and epidemiological data which will help
to provide a technical and scientific rationale for increased spending on
HIV-related drugs;
* The programmes in each country must be self-sustaining;
* Selection of treatments and interventions should be based on the
objective assessment of their medical, public health, and health economic
merits;
* Barriers to drug access can best be addressed through the development
of pilot projects and models that are then carefully evaluated to ensure
that the most effective systems are implemented in larger-scale projects in
the future;
* A multipartite framework that addresses HIV treatment access issues on
the basis of public health criteria can provide a model that may have
applicability to treatments for diseases beyond HIV.
Each Country is Unique
Each country is unique, especially in the context of HIV/AIDS. There are
differences in health care systems, economic capacities, HIV prevalence,
culture and geography. The obstacles to drug access vary widely, and there
is no single sustainable solution for all countries.
In sub-Saharan Africa, home to two out of three people living with HIV/AIDS
in the world today, per capita GDP in some cases as low as US$80 per year
dims the prospects for access to expensive drugs. Health care infrastructure
in many sub-Saharan countries is indeed so limited that it could not currently
provide for an adequate distribution and prescription of drugs, even if they
were provided at no cost.
In Latin America, where resources are greater and access to care is often a
constitutional right, political and ethical considerations need to be reconciled
with the technical, financial and social capacities of existing private and public
sector healthcare institutions.
Recognizing the value of an approach targeted to local needs, the Drug
Access Initiative has been designed to start with a limited scope, gradually

increasing the number of drugs available and the numbers of patients
reached, while ensuring that the strategies and procedures employed address

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