A new United Nations report says that a radically simplified approach to ensuring access to HIV treatment for everyone who needs it could prevent 10 million deaths by 2025 and 1 million new infections annually. The so-called Treatment 2.0, says the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), could lower the cost of treatment, simplify treatment regimens, ease the burden on health systems, and improve the quality of life for people living...

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) issued today its first-ever guidance on how to use more than 240 essential medicines for treatment of children aged 12 and below. “To be effective, medicines must be carefully chosen and the dose adjusted to suit the age, weight and needs of children,” said Hans Hogerzeil, director of essential medicines and pharmaceutical policies at WHO . “Without a global guide, many health-care professionals...

Is the Indian government bargaining away the rights of millions across the world to essential drugs supplied by India, hailed as the pharmacy of the developing world, in the name of free trade with the European Union (EU)? That's a fear being expressed by civil society groups in the developing world. Commerce minister Anand Sharma vehemently denies such a possibility, claiming that the free trade agreement (FTA) under negotiation with...

A wretched, forsaken corner of the world’s biggest democracy SURROUNDED by troops, the suspected militant saw the vehicle already waiting to take his corpse to the morgue. He expected to die, like many others, in an “encounter” with the security forces. In jail he told a human-rights activist—himself held on charges of waging war against the state and tortured with electric shocks—that he probably owed his life to a piece of...

India has played a crucial role in making essential medicines available and affordable for patients in the developing world through generic drugs. This has been possible by linking India’s patent policies and laws to public interest. Similarly, policies that align public funded R&D in India with public health have the potential to provide incentives to the development of medical technologies (vaccines, diagnostics and medicines) crucial for treating neglected diseases like...