Roche has announced that the Global Access Program is expanding beyond HIV, to include Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), Hepatitis B and C (HBV and HCV), and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) for low and middle income country programs where the disease burden is the highest.

The expansion of the Global Access Program highlights Roche’s commitment to improve access to cost-effective resources, implement scale-up programs, and contribute to the elimination of diseases in the regions with the greatest need.

In 2014, Roche announced, the Global Access Program for increased access to HIV diagnostics. Roche partnered with national governments, local healthcare facilities, communities and international agencies, including UNAIDS, CHAI, Unitaid, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Global Fund, and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to establish programs that would go beyond providing diagnostic tests.

In total, the Global Access Program now includes molecular diagnostics for HIV-1 viral load, HIV-1 and HIV-2 early infant diagnosis, the cobas^® Plasma Separation Card - an innovative plasma collection device, MTB and MTB - RIF/INH, Hepatitis B and C, and Human Papillomavirus. All these assays run on the cobas^®4800/6800/8800 platforms for various testing volume needs enabled by the cobas^® Plasma Separation Card that transports samples from remote areas/sites to the central lab for further processing.