Eastern European and Central Asian Community Advisory Board (EECA CAB) and ViiV Healthcare - meeting minutes

EECA CAB finds that ViiV should review its pricing policy in the region in the direction of a significant price reduction in order to improve access to treatment, especially with respect to the widely used drugs in the EECA region (including "Combivir", "Kivexa" and “Ziagen”). At the moment, the prices are oriented towards the formal classification of countries by income and they do not reflect the specifics of the epidemic and the situation with public health service in the region.

Dr. A. Karnīte: Factors associated with outcomes from Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection

In Latvia (as opposite to the average situation in EU) AIDS incidence is not decreasing and mortality (including HIV-specific) increases. HIV outcomes are associated with sociodemographic, health behaviour, health status as well as health care factors.

Are CD4-Cell Counts Still Necessary?

In stable HIV-infected patients, results contributed virtually nothing to medical decision making. The CD4-cell count has been a pivotal tool in HIV care since the late 1980s, when it first achieved its reputation as a reliable and convenient objective marker of immune deficiency. And now, hard as it may be to believe, we may not need it any more — at least not in the care of stable patients.

Government recognizes that the current HIV patient treatment is delayed

The Ministry of Health intends to require additional funding from Government, so that HIV-infected people could get state-funded treatment when their CD4 cell count falls below 350 cells, as required by international recommendations, rather than 200 cells, as is currently the case.

HCV Coalition for the Cure launches White House petition to end hepatitis C

Urging pharmaceutical giants Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) to put patients' lives ahead of profits, the HCV Coalition for The Cure on February 19 will launch a White House petition drive seeking 100,000 signatures within a month to bring to President Obama's attention an exceptionally promising treatment for a deadly disease being held captive by corporate self-interest.