UN Report: 40% global increase in access to HIV treatment within the last year

Over 4 million people are now receiving treatment for HIV, marking a nearly 40 per cent jump from the previous year according to a new United Nations report.
The new study – produced jointly by the UN World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) – said [...]

Innovative vaccine venture offers hope to less-developed countries

Britain’s largest charity, the Wellcome Trust, and pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. have joined together to create a non-profit, £90-million (about $150 million) research center in India to facilitate the development of new vaccines, “including [those for] neglected diseases for which inadequate or no vaccines exist.”  According to Nature News, “the move marks the first [...]

Ethics, research and NGOs

The Global Bioethics Blog recently added a very interesting post about the ethical challenges faced by humanitarian organizations in conducting research, with a specific focus on MSF.  The following is an abbreviated version of the post, though the original is certainly worth reading:
Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) is a humanitarian organization whose Nobel Prize winning work [...]

Ministers from Least-Developed Countries develop strategy to encourage local innovation and investment

Ministers and other senor government officials from least developed countries agreed to a strategy for using intellectual property to encourage local innovation and encourage foreign investment at a recent WIPO Forum.  The ministers also discussed the challenges facing LDCs in this area, in particular the difficulties for LDCs to obtain better access to technological information.
WIPO [...]