Challenges for intellectual property management of HIV vaccine-related research and development: part 1, the global context.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is one of the defi ning issues of the 21 century. AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa and the fourth-leading cause of death globally. UNAIDS estimated that 33.2 million people were living with HIV in 2007. More than twenty million people have already died from AIDS and sixty-fi ve million will face death over the next twenty years. The majority of these live in the developing world among the world’s poor, powerless and marginalized.