Cytomegalovirus

But just as important gains are beginning to show their promise for patients, a stagnation in donor funding, coupled with trade policies that will create serious additional barriers to accessing affordable generic medicines, are dealing HIV/AIDS treatment a double blow.

Valganciclovir is primarily used as treatment and prevention of an infection caused by cytomegalovirus (CMV) in organ transplant patients, a highly lucrative market that Roche has sought to protect by patenting the medicine. But CMV also affects people living with HIV, and if left untreated, can cause blindness and death.

For patients with advanced HIV, complications from CMV retinitis— most notably blindness—are preventable. However, screening and treatment are out of reach in many places where CMV retinitis is prevalent.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a member of the herpes virus family that was a familiar cause of blindness and death in patients with advanced AIDS in Western countries in the 1980s and 1990s, when it occurred in roughly one-third of patients with AIDS.

Geneva/Bangkok, December 1, 2007 – Failure to diagnose and treat cytomegalovirus retinitis (CMV) in people with AIDS is leading to unnecessary blindness, according to a paper published today in the journal PLoS Medicine. The authors found in pilot studies that CMV retinitis, which has been dramatically reduced in wealthy countries since the advent of antiretroviral therapy, occurred in 23%, 27%, and 32% of patients with advanced AIDS in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand respectively. By training clinicians to screen and taking steps to make the best treatment affordable, the authors argue that CMV diagnosis and treatment can easily be integrated into existing AIDS treatment programs.