Groningen Centre for Health Law

This year the World Health Organization (WHO) added dolutegravir, an antiretroviral medicine for the treatment of HIV infection, to its Model List of Essential Medicines in response to the recent evidence showing the medicine’s safety, efficacy, and high barrier to resistance. A recent study HIV drug resistance report 2017 launched by the WHO at the IAS2017 shows that in 6 of the 11 countries surveyed in Africa, Asia and Latin America, over 10% of people starting antiretroviral therapy had a strain of HIV that was resistant to some of the most widely used HIV medicines. This is a worrying trend and such levels of resistance demand a review of the treatment practices including switching to more robust ARV regimen.

At the end of March 2017, the Italian Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin authorised the importation of generic medicines. She did this with only a veiled reference to the high-priced hepatitis C (HCV) medicine sofosbuvir, marketed under the trade name Sovaldi. However, the authorisation is not restricted to the treatment of HCV and can be used to find alternatives for any medicine not available or affordable in Italy.