Advocates call for clarity on the terms of the Johnson & Johnson's deal with the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility to supply generic bedaquiline.

In advance of Global Fund replenishment conference, MSF releases report showing that many countries are not financially ready to cover HIV/TB response alone as global funding and political interest wanes.

“MSF welcomes the Indian Ministry of Health’s 10th March notification [i] on the prohibition of manufacture, sale and distribution of certain fixed dose combination (FDCs) drugs that put public health and lives of people at risk. The list of banned drugs includes several FDCs containing multiple antibiotics that have long been used injudiciously, contributing to the development of resistant strains of infection-causing bacteria.

Geneva, 13 June 2013 - The World Health Organization has today issued interim guidance on the use of bedaquiline, the first new drug to treat tuberculosis in 50 years, which received accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) on 31 December 2012. Acknowledging the growing crisis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and the urgent need for improved drugs with better efficacy and safety profiles, WHO has taken an unprecedented step to make interim recommendations about a drug based on phase IIb clinical trial data. Given the risk-benefit considerations for many people living with MDR-TB, MSF welcomes this move to accelerate improved treatment to those who need it most.

Geneva, 8 May 2013 – On the appointment of Roberto Azevedo as Director General of the World Trade Organization, international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned the WTO and incoming DG that access to medicines must become a priority. This includes allowing least-developed countries to remain exempt from introducing intellectual property rules, and maintaining the right of countries to use all flexibilities at their disposal to ensure access to affordable generic medicines.

A mobile Médecins Sans Frontières tuberculosis (TB) surgery mission has successfully completed surgery on six drug-resistant (DR) TB patients in Yeravan, Armenia – the first mobile TB surgery ever carried out by the international humanitarian medical organisation.

Brussels, 9 April, 2013 - As European Commission (EC) pressure mounts on India to rush into signing a free trade agreement (FTA) by mid-April, activists from across Europe mobilised in Brussels today to demand the EC withdraw provisions that will harm people’s access to medicines in India and across the developing world. Civil society organisations have learnt through leaked texts that the EC, in closed-door negotiations, is aggressively pushing for stronger industry control at the expense of public health, threatening millions of lives.

DNP+, MSF urge India to reject EU demands before April deadline, protest at European Commission in Delhi

Once considered a disease on the decline, the social and economic downfall that followed after the collapse of the Soviet Union has sparked an escalation of the TB epidemic in many post-USSR countries, including Ukraine. The country’s prisons are a hotbed for the disease, with prevalence rates more than ten times higher than in the rest of society. In the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Médecins Sans Frontières now provides treatment and support to over 140 inmates and ex-inmates suffering from multi-drug-resistant (MDR) TB.

“It’s vital that we understand that this drug is a life-saver for the many who have run out of options.”