UNAIDS: The First 10 Years

UNAIDS The First 10 Years164Schwartländer, Ian Grubb and Jos Perriëns from the Global Fund and WHO 22 , have writtenthat the list of essential drugs and the WHO treatment guidelines are well-acceptedstandards today. ‘However, we can easily forget how bold and controversial these stepswere at the time. For example, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) had provided agrant to WHO to produce the simplified treatment guidelines. When NIH did not want tofully subscribe to the approach proposed, WHO took the unprecedented step of returningthe funds to NIH’.Around this time, the lead responsibility for HIV treatment within UNAIDS moved fromthe UNAIDS Secretariat to WHO. Piot commented that this was when WHO fi nally startedtaking up its role fully within the UNAIDS Programme. It was also the beginning of adifficult process to agree on a rational division of labour among the Cosponsors and theSecretariat. Even in 2007, there was still a lack of clarity between WHO and UNICEF overresponsibility for mother-to-child transmission.June saw the publication of the progress report on the Accelerating Access Initiative (AAI);it showed that one significant achievement was to lower prices for antiretroviral treatment 23 .Africa was able to increase significantly the number of people treated, both within andoutside the framework of UN-brokered supply agreements within the AAI. About 35 500people were being treated with antiretrovirals supplied by six companies by the end ofMarch 2002 – a fourfold increase in 18 months. Still, according to the AAI final report, toofew patients had benefited and generic producers had not been suffi ciently involved 24 .More resourcesbecame available forantiretroviral treatmentwhen the World Bankendorsed funding fordrug procurement as partof comprehensive AIDSprogramming.UNAIDS/J.Moore22Schwartländer B, Grubb I, Perriëns J (2007). ‘The 10-year struggle to provide antiretroviral treatment to peoplewith HIV in the developing world’. The Lancet, 368.23WHO/UNAIDS (2002). Accelerating Access Progress Report, 2002. Geneva, WHO/UNAIDS.24Ibid.