Working together to end poverty and injustice

Access to treatment

A nurse holding a range of medicines to treat opportunistic HIV infections such as TB. Credit: Annie Bungeroth/Oxfam.

Medication that slows the progression of the disease has been available since 1996. However, these drugs are so costly that they are virtually unobtainable to the vast majority of sufferers living outside of developed countries.

If you contract HIV in the rich world you can live a long a long life, but in the developing world, you usually die. Millions of people die each year simply because they cannot afford the essential medicines that might save their lives, called anti-retrovirals (ARVs). According to the World Health Organisation, by the end of last year, only 17 percent of the 4.7 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who were in need of ARVs received them.

Oxfam has campaigning globally for changes to the international trade rules that prevent poor countries from importing cheap versions of vital medicines. Oxfam and its allies were instrumental in getting agreement in the World Trade Organisation to ensure that governments must have the unambiguous right to obtain the cheapest possible life-saving medicines.

• Read more on making trade fair
• Read more on patents and access to treatments