MSF Access

🤔 Testing, testing: what do you know about Ebola tests?

📩 ...and, take the opportunity to subscribe to our newsletter right before the August issue!

Test: have you heard about tests? Ensuring sustainable, adapted, ready and available diagnostic capacity is critical for a quick response to disease outbreak, and in the current Ebola outbreak, this must be a priority.

⬇️ Join our campaign. Tell Gilead to drop the price of lenacapavir and make it available to all.

The 26th International AIDS Society Conference starts today in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Gilead Sciences will be there presenting new research on lenacapavir, a twice-yearly HIV prevention injection that is nearly 100% effective.

Here's what they won't be talking about: Brazil, the country hosting this conference, still can't access lenacapavir for the people who need it. Communities in Brazil participated in the clinical trials that helped prove this drug works. Yet Gilead's pricing and supply decisions keep it out of reach in Brazil, as well as 25 other countries.

Gilead alone should not decide who gets lenacapavir and who doesn't.

Two shots. $40. Everywhere.
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/campaigns/access-to-LEN

Why is responding to an Ebola disease outbreak so challenging?
Beyond treating patients, responders must quickly diagnose cases, source essential supplies, and overcome logistical hurdles and often in resource-limited settings.

Join our Ebola disease webinar series: "Everything you need to know on diagnostics and supply, and why it's not easy."
📅 Tuesday, 28 July 2026
🕓 4:00 PM (KL/MNL) | 3:00 PM (BKK/JKT)

Speakers:
🔴 Sonjelle Shilton, Diagnostic Advisor, MSF Access
🔴 Antonio Martin, Head, Global Direct Procurement, MSF International
Moderator:
🔴Sinhye Ha, Regional Advisor for Asia Pacific, MSF Access

Have a question? Submit it when you register and we'll do our best to answer it live. Register now: https://tinyurl.com/3jcnhnve

It's been 12 years since "PharmaGate", a scandal where pharmaceutical companies spent R6 million trying to stop South Africa from making medicines more affordable. The South African Government promised reform. It still hasn't happened.

Meanwhile, real people are paying the price. A cystic fibrosis patient had to go to court just to try to get an affordable version of a life-changing medicine. A TB drug remained expensive because of patents, even after cheaper generics were available elsewhere.

Reflecting on the painfully slow progress towards patent reform in South Africa, Candice Sehoma, Regional Advisor for Africa, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Access, and Tendai Mafuma, Senior Legal Researcher at Section27, examine the government’s continued delay in amending the country’s patent laws despite repeated commitments to do so.

The question we should all be asking: Why is South Africa still waiting to fix the patent law that blocks affordable medicines ⁉️
Read the full op-ed: https://msfsa.me/4y36cvm

Today, MSF called for the inclusion of analogue insulin pens to Kenya’s Social Health Authority (SHA) benefits package.

“Over the past few years, Kenya has taken important steps in the right direction by including analogue insulin pens in its Essential Medicines List and the National Clinical Guidelines for Diabetes Management,” said Dr Narine Danielyan, MSF Medical Coordinator in Kenya. “Now is the time to go the last mile and ensure these devices are available as part of the Social Health Authority benefits package so that more people in Kenya have access to the insulin delivery device that is most effective for their own clinical needs, in alignment with national guidelines.”

Learn more:

MSF proposal for Kenya’s Social Health Authority (SHA) benefits package to include analogue insulin pens to improve care for people living with diabetes MSF proposal for inclusion of insulin analogue pens and pen needles into Kenyan Social Health Authority benefits package

The 2026 Ebola disease outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, caused by Bundibugyo virus revealed a critical diagnostic blind spot in existing Ebola surveillance and testing systems. Although DRC authorities have expanded laboratory testing capacity, timely access to diagnosis continues to remain a challenge.

This technical briefer highlights these persistent gaps and calls on all stakeholders involved in this response to ensure access not only to the diagnostic tools, but also to the systems required to use them effectively.

The diagnostic blind spot in the 2026 Bundibugyo Ebola disease outbreak: access gaps and priority actions A technical briefer sharing gaps and access priorities to ensure access to right diagnostics for Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak in DRC and Uganda.

25 years ago, HIV treatment cost $10,000 a year. Communities around the world mobilized to bring it under $100. Millions of people are alive today because of that struggle.

History is repeating itself.

Gilead's lenacapavir is nearly 100% effective at preventing HIV. Two injections a year. It can be sold for under $40. But Gilead charges $28,000 in the US, has excluded 26 middle-income countries from affordable access, and refuses to sell the drug to MSF at any price.

We've been here before. We know Gilead can make lenacapavir more accessible.

Two Shots. $40. Everywhere. Join the campaign: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/access-to-LEN