As part of the response to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the health promotion activities in Hong Kong are in full swing with 11 sessions conducted since February. Our team has reached out to ethnic minorities, migrants and asylum seekers, street cleaners, visually impaired persons,...
An MSF team in Hong Kong opened a project at the end of January focusing on health education for vulnerable people. Community engagement is a crucial activity of any outbreak response and in Hong Kong, this focuses on groups who are less likely to have access to important medical information, such...
Unjust monopoly blocks access to treatment for millions of people with hepatitis C The Chinese Patent Re-examination Board (PRB) held a vital public hearing today on Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) request to invalidate the patent granted to US pharmaceutical corporation Gilead Sciences for the...
RCEP trade deal could cut medicines lifeline for people in developing countries As the sixteen countries negotiating Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement meet in Bangkok this week for another round of closed door negotiations, public health experts and the...
Affordable generic versions from China could save millions of people’s lives Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today filed a legal patent challenge at China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), requesting the invalidation of the patent granted to US pharmaceutical corporation Gilead Sciences...
Gilead recently launched one of these drugs for $100/pill in China Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has filed a legal patent challenge in China against US pharmaceutical corporation Gilead’s patent application for the combination of two crucial oral hepatitis C medicines, sofosbuvir and velpatasvir...
As negotiators for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement prepare to meet in Tianjin, China, from 16-22 October, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders urges the 16 negotiating countries to reject any terms in the deal that will harm access to...
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) response to the news MSF has learned that the Chinese patent office has just denied Gilead Science’s request for a key patent on the hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir. This drug, together with other antivirals, is the backbone of several newer, more effective curative...
More steps need to be taken to secure access to one-pill-once-a-day HIV treatment The recent invalidation by China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of one of the patents on tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), an essential medicine to treat HIV and hepatitis B, is a welcome step to...
“Since the project started in 2003, the quality of medical care offered to HIV patients in Guangxi province has vastly improved, and this project is a good example of how such collaboration between China’s health authorities and an international medical organization like MSF can be beneficial for...
