Free Trade Agreement Between the USA and Thailand Threatens Access to HIV/AIDS Treatment

Access to HIV/AIDS medicines makes a huge difference to the lives of infected people and their families. Not only do these medicines help people live longer, they also greatly improve the quality of their lives, reduce the stigma and discrimination that they might experience, and enable them to contribute to the economic and social welfare of their families, their communities, and their countries as a whole. Thailand is a positive example of a developing country that has developed effective HIV/AIDS treatment programmes, with beneficial results for its population. It has a health-care system that can deliver antiretroviral therapy and other treatments to those in need. And thanks to the availability of affordable generic medicines the government is able to offer some key HIV/AIDS medicines to around 30,000 people, with plans to scale up the programme in coming years.