Civil society representatives at the WHO Regional Committee for Africa warned that medical advances against HIV remain inaccessible to patients in developing countries because of high prices. Sub-saharan Africa, which bears a disproportionate burden of the HIV epidemic, remains most at risk.

The civil society representatives from HAI Africa, OXFAM and TB Action observed that an increasing number of essential medicines are being patented in developing countries and such patents were an obstacle to price reductions. This undermines access because high prices place medicines outside the reach of poor people and governments.

Health Action International (HAI) Africa and Oxfam have warned that the growing push to enact anti-counterfeit laws could undermine access to affordable medicines in Africa. They point to a disturbing trend on confiscation of generic medicines on the pretext of cracking down on counterfeits.

HAI Africa and Oxfam have decried confusion in the development and enforcement of anti-counterfeit legislation, which has resulted in consignments of generic medicines being labelled counterfeits.

Access to essential medicines remains a major challenge in most African countries. For the majority of Africans, essential medicines remain largely unavailable and inaccessible.

Factors affecting availability and affordability range from corruption to lack of proper planning that result in stock-outs of medicines for diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, as well as common and manageable conditions such as diabetes and HIV.

A new booklet on the struggle for access to essential medicines in East and Southern Africa has been released by the Stop Stock-outs campaign partners with the support of Open Society Institute (OSI). It contains a selection of short stories from different parts of East and Southern Africa, describing the great difficulties ordinary people face in accessing essential medicines. 

The booklet further brings out the glaring inequalities that exist between the rich and poor when it comes to accessing basic services. It reveals how most people in many African countries have been forced to forego treatment, accept compromised services or turn to quack cures, while others live in fear of premature death simply because their limited income affects their health choices.