“The diseases were in the South and the drugs were in the North”: Ellen ‘t Hoen speaks on video about the history and future of medicines and IP

Ellen ‘t Hoen discusses the HIV epidemic in the 90’s, which hit sub-Saharan Africa particularly hard, and was exacerbated by the lack of availability of treatment. The physicians and the nurses working with those living with HIV knew that treatments existed in Europe, but had to watch their patients die because the drugs were available only at cripplingly high prices, if at all. What public health activists learned from their work to expand access to HIV medicines has much to teach about how to handle treatment access problems of today. Watch Ellen discuss this above, then find out more at www.accesstomedicines.org.