The World Health Organization (WHO) logo is pictured at the entrance of its headquarters in Geneva, January 25, 2015.
Reuters/Pierre Albouy
<span id="articleText"> <span id="midArticle_start"/> The World Health Organization has added new curative treatments for hepatitis C to its essential medicines list, but the U.N. agency said prices needed to fall to make them accessible to patients in poorer countries.
<span id="midArticle_0"/>The treatment of hepatitis C, which affects about 150 million people globally and kills around half a million each year, has been transformed by the arrival of new drugs, such as Gilead's Sovaldi.
<span id="midArticle_1"/>These products can cure hepatitis C but are out of reach at Western prices to patients in poor countries, with a single Sovaldi pill costing $1,000 in the United States.
<span id="midArticle_2"/> <span class="first-article-divide"/>"While some efforts have been made to reduce their price for low-income countries, without uniform strategies to make these medicines more affordable globally the potential for public health gains will be reduced considerably," WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny said.
<span id="midArticle_3"/>While Gilead has slashed its price for several low-income countries, campaigners say more needs to be done to ensure worldwide access, including in middle-income countries.
<span id="midArticle_4"/> <span class="second-article-divide"/>The WHO's Model List of Essential Medicines, which is updated every two years, is used by governments around the world to help determine which treatments they should make available. The latest version, published on Friday, includes several new drugs for cancer and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.
<span id="midArticle_5"/> <span class="third-article-divide"/>
<span id="midArticle_6"/> (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
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