The report "Ten Stories that Mattered in Access to Medicines in 2011" looks at developments in 2011 that had an impact – positive or negative – on people’s ability to access drugs, diagnostics and vaccines in developing countries.

“For the diseases our medical teams encounter every day in places where we work, 2011 was a year of both critical progress and dangerous backsliding,” said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, executive director of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Access Campaign. “At a time of so much promise, it is crucial to continue pushing forward, and refuse to accept a double standard in care between rich and poor countries.”

The list covers key developments regarding diseases MSF confronts in developing countries:

• Landmark findings about HIV treatment as HIV prevention
• The strikingly low number of people receiving treatment for more lethal, drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis
• A new subsidy intended to lower the price of malaria treatments that is headed in the wrong direction
• A dangerous global shortage of the drug needed to treat the parasitic slow killer Chagas disease
• Slow progress on better adapting food aid to meet children’s needs
• Vaccine prices finally becoming more transparent
• The first-ever guidelines to treat an HIV/AIDS "opportunistic infection," cryptococcal meningitis  

It also looks at key policy developments of the year, including:

• Unprecedented funding shortfalls at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria;
• Drug companies cutting across-the-board discounts in middle-income countries;
• The continued struggle to ensure affordable generic medicines can be produced in India, the "pharmacy of the developing world."