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This annotated bibliography has been prepared in an effort to provide policy makers, technical personnel and other stakeholders with comprehensive information on the costs of interventions and impact of HIV on health systems. The documents included in the bibliograpy focus on those aspects of the pandemic most related to economic impact, financing and resource allocation, costing, health system strengthening, scaling up antiretroviral therapy, surveillance systems, and programme monitoring and evaluation. The bibliography describes 101 publications describing work done from 1995 onwards as well as a directory of web resources. The bibliography is not a comprehensive reveiw, but is rather intended to highlight current information in the field of HIV and health systems strengthening

"The Health Care Systems in Transition (HiT) profiles are country-based reports that provide an analytical description of a health care system and of reform initiatives in progress or under development. The HiTs are a key element of the work of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. HiTs seek to provide relevant comparative information to support policy-makers and analysts in the development of health care systems in Europe." Contents: 1. Introduction and historical background 2. Organizational structure and management 3. Health care financing and expenditure 4. Health care delivery system 5. Financial resource allocation 6. Health care reforms

This paper examines how the government of the United States is contravening its commitment to the World Trade Organisation's Doha Declaration (to prioritize public health over private patent rights and to promote access to medicines) by using technical assistance, bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up patent protection in developing countries. This policy benefits the influential US pharmaceutical industry while pushing medicines further out of the reach of poor people

This study looks at current policies and practices in pharmaceutical supply and reimbursement in Ghana, and considers the options for a more efficient, effective, and equitable pharmaceutical pricing policy

This report calls on international donors to join with African countries in implemeting World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on the treatment of malaria. WHO recommends that African countries facing resistance to classical antimalarials introduce drug combinations containing artemisinin derivatives - artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT). This report defines the malaria problem, looks at what works in malaria treatment and outlines what needs to be done to make ACT work in reality

Those concerned with poverty and health have sometimes viewed equity and human rights as abstract concepts with little practical application, and links between health, equity and human rights have not been examined systematically. This article outlines five ways in which health institutions can deal with poverty and health: institutionalising the systematic and routine application of equity and human rights perspectives to all health sector actions; strengthening and extending the public health functions that create the conditions necessary for health; implementing equitable health care financing, which should reduce poverty while increasing access for the poor; ensuring that health services respond effectively to the major causes of preventable ill-health among the poor and disavantaged; and monitoring, advocating and taking action to address the potential health equity and human rights implications of policies in all sectors affecting health, not only the health sector