National ADAP Monitoring Project Releases Brief on Trends in Opportunistic Infection Drug Coverage and Spending
The National AIDS Drug Assistance Program Monitoring Project has released a briefing paper, titled "Issue Brief 2003: Trends in Opportunistic Infection Drug Coverage and Spending," detailing the availability through ADAPs of drugs to treat opportunistic infections. ADAPs provide HIV/AIDS-related prescription drugs to uninsured and underinsured HIV-positive individuals throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands. The project found that there has been a trend toward increased coverage of drugs used to treat OIs but most states do not offer coverage for all recommended OI drugs. Nearly every state ADAP offers coverage of all 18 FDA-approved antiretroviral drugs recommended; however, the coverage of therapies used to treat and prevent opportunistic infections varies among states. The briefing notes that while antiretroviral therapies have greatly decreased the incidence of opportunistic infections, OI drugs can still "play a key role in successfully managing HIV" and access to such drugs is "important." The National ADAP Monitoring Project -- a project of the Kaiser Family Foundation, conducted by the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors and the AIDS Treatment Data Network -- collects data from states regarding ADAP spending over a one month period of time each year, enabling the project to compare data to other years to observe trends in spending (Aldridge/Chou, "Trends in Opportunistic Infection Drug Coverage and Spending," February 2003). The full report is available online.
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