HIV infection in pregnancy is associated with signifi cant maternal morbidility. Infected children die early without interventions and uninfected children are left without parents. Society has to bear the loss of working people and the expense of looking after the orphans. Millions of children are infected from the maternal routes many of which could have been prevented.

The UN estimates that over the last few years between 15,000 - 20,000 people living with HIV die annually in Myanmar, because of lack of access to urgent lifesaving anti-retroviral therapy (ART). Lives in the Balance outlines the situation for people affected by HIV and TB, with a special focus on multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), in Myanmar today.  It calls for urgent funding and assistance to be made available by the international donor community to help Myanmar dose the devastating gap between people's need and people's access to treatment for HIV and TB.

Over the past ten years, an increasing number of countries are initiating, negotiating and agreeing new trade agreements between two countries or amongst a group of countries. These are commonly known as free trade agreements or “FTAs”1, and they are promoted as providing significant economic benefits to signatory countries through the removal or reduction of barriers to trade in goods and services.