April 4, 2008 Thailand 2006 © MSF Cytomegalovirus (CMV)
retinitis, a condition that causes blindness in patients with
advanced HIV, has long been a neglected disease of the AIDS
pandemic, leading to unnecessary cases of blindness,
particularly in Southeast Asia. The full scale of the CMV
retinitis problem in developing regions is still not known, but
a recent paper published in PLoS Medicine, based on pilot
studies from various MSF projects, found that CMV retinitis
occurred in 23, 27, and 32 percent of patients with advanced HIV
in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand, respectively. Complications
from CMV retinitis— most notably blindness—are preventable with
screening programs and anti-CMV treatment. However, screening is
unfortunately not routinely performed in many places where CMV
retinitis is prevalent. The $10,273 price for a four-month
course of treatment is prohibitive. The treatment, an oral
medicine named valganciclovir produced solely by Hoffman-La
Roche, is far too expensive for most of the patients w