The challenge
Improving access to drugs and medical treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS is perhaps the most difficult and urgent
issue facing the world community today in the context of HIV/AIDS and human rights. The reality is stark in many
countries. People living with HIV/AIDS often cannot access even the most basic medication to treat secondary
conditions (such as tuberculosis) or to relieve pain, even though some of these drugs are very common and cheap in
other parts of the world. An even more challenging problem concerns the expensive but very important anti retroviral
drugs, which limit the damage that HIV does to the immune system and therefore can make it possible for people living
with HIV/AIDS to lead relatively full lives for many years. All of this undermines fundamental rights: the right to health and
the right to life of people living with HIV/AIDS.
A basic healthcare package for people living with HIV/AIDS includes social support, counselling, a good
diet, the treatment of secondary conditions, pain relief, and access to anti-retroviral drugs.
The classes of drugs most important to people living with HIV/AIDS are:
•anti-infectives to treat or prevent opportunistic infections;
•anti-cancer drugs to treat tumours such as Kaposi sarcoma and lymphoma;
•palliative care drugs to relieve pain and discomfort;
•anti-retroviral drugs, to suppress the HIV virus and maintain the ability of the immune system to resist disease.
Access to anti-retrovirals is currently the most controversial issue : these drugs can greatly improve the health
and life expectation of people living with HIV/AIDS. At the same time, they are expensive and their price can be
particularly high in developing countries. The result is that they are only accessible to a minority of people living
with HIV/AIDS.
It is important to keep in mind that the problem of access to drugs and treatment is not limited to access to antiretrovirals.
It also includes access to more basic medicines, such as those needed to treat opportunistic
infections and painkillers. The lack of access to treatment is a human rights violation for every human being.