Dear friends,
In this week’s update, we take a closer
look at the hepatitis C epidemic and the increasingly high cost of medicines. A
full treatment course for hepatitis C—a disease affecting 180 million people
worldwide—costs up to $50,000 thanks to patent-protected monopoly pricing, and
remains virtually inaccessible for the majority of people living outside of the
U.S. and Europe. Read the stories below and add your voice to the discussion.
Thank you for reading, and please join us
on Facebook and Twitter.
Paul Silva
psilva@sorosny.org
Follow me on Twitter: @PauloNYC
On World Hepatitis Day, civil society
groups called on the World Health Organization to help develop less expensive
hepatitis C treatment. Although hepatitis C is curable, most patients outside
of the developed world are unable to access treatment, due largely in part to
prohibitive pricing of lifesaving medicines. One out of every three people on
earth has been infected by viral hepatitis. Read more and learn what you can do to help.
Despite the best advocacy efforts of the
access to medicines movement over the past 15 years, we continue to witness
patent monopolies that increase medicines prices and preclude treatment for an
increasing number of patients living in developing countries (80 percent of the
world population). Recently, a leaked trade negotiation briefing shows the
Follow health-related tweets from the Open
Society Foundations: @OpenSociety/health-team.