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World Economic Forum On Africa Begins; Reports Examine African Development
New Era examines discussions at the meeting over how "an acute scarcity of financial res is threatening to set back the commendable strides achieved in the global fight against HIV/AIDS pandemic within the next three to five years." The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria"s Director for the Africa Unit Fareed Abdullah said during a news briefing at the conference, "There is no[t] enough money on the table for antiretroviral (ARV) treatments. It is a massive conundrum. The funding gap would start to hit in the period going forward."

Phase II Trial Of ASA404 Published In Lung Cancer
Antisoma plc (LSE: ASM; USOTC: ATSMY) announces that the journal Lung Cancer has published the results of a single-arm phase II trial of ASA404 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The trial included patients with both major histological forms of NSCLC: squamous and non-squamous. Positive data from this trial supported the progress of ASA404 into phase III trials in patients with NSCLC of all histologies.
News of the day
Some Small Businesses Must Cut Employee Health Benefits Or Lay Off Workers Amid Economic Recession
Small businesses increasingly are eliminating their employee health coverage plans because of rising health care premiums and declining revenue attributed to the current economic recession, the Wall Street Journal reports. About 10% of small companies are considering ending their employee health coverage plans over the next year, compared with 3% of small businesses in 2005, according to a recent survey by the National Small Business Association. In 2008, 38% of small companies offered health coverage, compared with 41% in 2007 and 61% in 1993, according to NSBA. According to a Hewitt Associates survey, 19% of all U.S. businesses plan to halt providing health care benefits to their employees in the next three to five years.A rise in health care coverage premiums has contributed to employers eliminating plans, according to the Journal. Premiums for single policies increased by 74% for small businesses from 2001 to 2008, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to Scott Krienke, senior vice president of product lines for Assurant Health, health insurance premiums for small businesses increase by 8% to 16% annually on average, with smaller firms often having the highest increases. According to the Journal, many employers are choosing to eliminate health coverage instead of eliminating jobs or closing down their business. Some businesses have chosen instead to shift more health care costs to workers, change health insurers, switch prescription drug plans to encourage employees to purchase more generic drugs or offer employees wellness plans that encourage healthy habits as a strategy to reduce health care costs, the Journal reports (Mattioli, Wall Street Journal, 5/26).
Diagnostics

Sub-Optimal Treatment Threatening Survival Of HIV/AIDS Patients

Stagnation in HIV/AIDS funding and the high cost of new medicines are putting the lives of thousands of poor patients at risk, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Mç©decins Sans Frontiç¨res (MSF) warned today at the 2009 International AIDS Society conference in South Africa . Patients needing new drug regimens will return to AIDS "death row." While the lack of access to antiretroviral treatment for seven million people remains unaddressed, inadequate financing now further threatens treatment scale-up. In one of the longest running public sector AIDS treatment programs in Africa, a partnership between MSF and the Department of Health in Khayelitsha, South Africa, 16 percent of patients experienced treatment failure on their first-line regimen within five years. A quarter of those patients who were switched to a second-line regimen failed on this alternative treatment line within two years. With no third-line regimen available in South Africa-as is the case in many other developing countries--these patients are now at risk of dying. The new report,"HIV/AIDS treatment in developing countries - The battle for long-term survival has just begun," is available here. "What we are seeing in Khayelitsha is what we will soon see throughout Africa if there is not a focused push for urgent change," said Dr Eric Goemaere, medical co-ordinator for MSF in South Africa. "We need to provide the most robust first-line treatment possible, to detect treatment failure through monitoring HIV levels in the body before patients show symptoms, and to provide access to affordable second and third-line treatment combinations. None of this is happening now, which means that thousands of patients are back on AIDS death row." Unlike older first-line drugs, most second- and third-line drugs are patented and priced out of reach for patients in developing countries. In some of these countries, switching from a first- to second-line regimen increases treatment costs as much as seventeen-fold. To stop spiraling costs, countries will have to routinely use measures such as compulsory licenses, which allow the generic manufacture of drugs under patent to ensure affordable treatments. MSF is recommending that drug companies put their AIDS drug patents in the "patent pool" that the international drug financing agency UNITAID is creating to allow poor countries to access critically needed drugs at affordable prices. The patent pool will provide generic producers or researchers with drug licenses in exchange for a fee paid to the originator company. "It is a question of choice for national and donor governments," said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of MSF"s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign. "Will they give poor people just a few extra years of life, or the same chance for long-term survival as people with HIV/AIDS in rich countries?" At present, over three million people living with HIV/AIDS in the developing world receive antiretroviral therapy. An estimated seven million people who are in need of treatment are still waiting for access. MSF operates HIV/AIDS programs in approximately 30 countries and provides antiretroviral treatment to more than 140,000 HIV-positive adult and child patients. Doctors Without Borders


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