Between 2021 and 2024, multiple countries faced significant medication and supply shortages in hospitals and pharmacies due to supply chain disruptions, demand spikes, and manufacturing delays.

Ireland experienced a paracetamol shortage, intensified by rising Covid-19 and winter flu cases during the festive and new year period.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to HIV prevention services, slowing the decline in new HIV infections and disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable populations.

African policymakers and leaders were urged to prioritize investment in health systems, revise universal health coverage (UHC) plans towards tax-funded approaches, and strengthen public health capacity through platforms like PEPFAR and collaborations with donors to modernize supply chains.

A survey found that 72% of cancer centers reported ongoing shortages of carboplatin and 59% of cisplatin, leading to situations where doctors in the United States were unable to provide life-saving cancer treatment to patients, even in 2023.

Global AIDS response consultations highlighted the need to build on emergency innovations developed during COVID-19, address structural barriers, and restore full program capacity.

Countries worldwide scrambled to adapt outreach for HIV services, especially to high-risk populations, amidst the pandemic's constraints on regular service delivery.

Widespread substandard medications posed an additional risk, with patients failing to improve despite accurate diagnosis and prescription, frustrating both patients and healthcare staff.

Foreign currency shortages in some countries restricted importers’ ability to procure essential medications, further exacerbating drug shortages.

Shortages included not just medicines but also essential supplies like condoms, impacting public health services.

Authorities often attributed shortages of medicines and supplies to the ongoing effects of COVID-19.

Between 2021 and 2024, multiple countries faced significant medication and supply shortages in hospitals and pharmacies due to supply chain disruptions, demand spikes, and manufacturing delays.

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U.S. cancer centers report ongoing shortage of chemotherapy drugs

By Cara Murez, HealthDay News
In all, 72% of cancer centers surveyed reported a continued shortage of carboplatin. And 59% were still seeing a shortage of cisplatin. Photo by klbz/Pixabay

U.S. cancer centers continue to have shortages of commonly used chemotherapy drugs, a new survey shows, though the medications are not as scarce as they were last June.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a nonprofit alliance of leading cancer centers, surveyed its network in September.

In all, 72% of cancer centers surveyed reported a continued shortage of carboplatin. And 59% were still seeing a shortage of cisplatin.

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These two platinum-based generic chemotherapy medications are recommended for treating many different cancers. Overall, 86% of centers surveyed said they were short on at least one type of anti-cancer drug. A survey in June showed that 93% of cancer centers had a shortage of carboplatin, and 70% of cisplatin.

"Everyone with cancer should have access to the best possible treatment according to the latest evidence and expert consensus guidelines," said Dr. Robert Carlson, chief executive officer for NCCN.

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"Drug shortages aren't new, but the widespread impact makes this one particularly alarming. It is extremely concerning that this situation continues despite significant attention and effort over the past few months. We need enduring solutions in order to safeguard people with cancer and address any disparities in care," Carlson said in a NCCN news release. Twenty-nine of the NCCN's member institutions responded to the September survey. They include leading academic centers across the United States. The findings may not reflect additional challenges that smaller community practices serving rural and marginalized patients are experiencing. The centers surveyed were using strict waste management strategies, so nearly all were still able to provide the medications to all patients who needed them. Other medications in short supply included methotrexate, with 66% of centers reporting a shortage; 5-fluorouracil, with 55% falling short; fludarabine at 45%; and hydrocortisone at 41%.

"These drug shortages are the result of decades of systemic challenges," said Alyssa Schatz, NCCN's senior director of policy and advocacy. "We recognize that comprehensive solutions take time."

Schatz said the network appreciates those who have put forth proposals to improve investment in generics.

"At the same time, we have to acknowledge that the cancer drug shortage has been ongoing for months, which is unacceptable for anyone impacted by cancer today," Schatz said. "These new survey results remind us that we are still in an ongoing crisis and must respond with appropriate urgency."

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The organization is continuing to advocate for more supplies.

CNN recently reported that two other drugs used for cancer, vinblastine and dacarbazine, went into shortage in September.

"These drugs are particularly used to treat patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma. Hodgkin's lymphoma is probably one of the most curable types of cancers out there," Dr. Doug Hawkins of the Children's Oncology Group, a research organization, told CNN.

"The problem is never-ending. It is horrible," he added. "I mean, to say to a patient, 'we know how to treat your child, but we can't get the drugs,' and this is America, and it's 2023 -- it's crazy."

More information

The White House has more on strengthening the supply chain for cancer drugs.

Copyright © 2023 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Latest Headlines

Ireland experienced a paracetamol shortage, intensified by rising Covid-19 and winter flu cases during the festive and new year period.

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Content: Ireland has been suffering a paracetamol shortage as cases of Covid-19 and the winter flu in the country soared over the festive and new year period.

The revelation was made by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly after his department received notification of a supply issue from the Health Products Regulatory Authority.

It is understood the shortage impacted some prescription paracetamol products.

Read More:Irish people complain of ‘worst ever’ winter bug sweeping country that feels like Covid but isn’t

Two suppliers affected have stated that resupply will be sometime in January 2023.

However, there are other prescription paracetamol suppliers with some stock available on the shelves.

Paracetamol is one of the medicines used most often in Ireland and especially for the flu, aches and pain.

But Mr Donnelly pointed out that there are multiple forms of the drug with different strengths and brands available from various sources.

He said: "In the event that there are some supply issues for individual medicines, alternative options such as alternative strengths and brands, generic medicines will usually be available to ensure continuity of treatment.

"In some cases where the medicine initially prescribed for the patient is unavailable, patients may be switched to a suitable therapeutic alternative following appropriate consultation with a healthcare professional."

The Health Minister said medicine shortages have been increasingly prevalent worldwide over the past decade. The causes of such shortages are multifactorial including shortage of raw materials, manufacturing difficulties and industry consolidations.

He stated: "Medicine shortages can originate at any point in the supply chain. They can involve and impact many stakeholders in different ways as the supply models and clinical use of therapies can vary across national health systems.

"Management of medicines shortages necessitates a multi-faceted, multi stakeholder response to ensure patient safety , continuity of care and protection of public health.

"Patients or their carers who have any concerns in relation to temporary alternative products provided because of medical shortages are advised to speak with their pharmacist or other healthcare [professionals] involved in their care."

Mr Donnelly was responding to a number of written Dail questions on the shortage of medicines.

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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to HIV prevention services, slowing the decline in new HIV infections and disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable populations.

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Health: Assuring health security for all

Finishing the job on HIV/AIDS

John N. Nkengasong

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Health Diplomacy, U.S. Department of State

What it will take to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a global health threat by 2030

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a renewed need for domestic and donor support to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a global health threat. This requires a strong emphasis on galvanizing political and programmatic leadership to sustain the response, centering programs around health equity, sustainably strengthening public health systems, and health security.

In 2001, the Heads of State of Africa met in a special summit in Abuja devoted specifically to addressing the exceptional challenges of HIV/AIDS. The HIV/AIDS pandemic had been raging worldwide with an acute impact on most countries in Africa. The spread of the disease was impacting every dimension of society–in African countries most affected, AIDS had lowered life expectancy of adults on average by 20 years. This session, which came soon after the unprecedented U.N. Security Council Resolution in 2000 declaring HIV/AIDS a security threat, acknowledged the tremendous impact that the spread of HIV was having on the continent as not only a health crisis, but also an economic and security crisis, which would lead to massive instability in the continent if left unchecked.

The Abuja summit concluded with heads of state committing to take personal responsibility and provide political leadership at the highest level to commit all necessary resources and measures to attack the epidemic–from pledging 15 percent of budgets to the health sector, providing access to affordable treatment, scaling-up educational efforts, to reforming national policies. These commitments helped spark a regional movement to attack the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the continent by governments, donors, advocates, non-profits, private companies, and more.

Twenty years later, the annual number of new infections has dropped by 75 percent (from 3.4M to 870,000), and deaths have dropped 80 percent (from 2.3 million to 460,000) in Africa.1 Several high-burden African countries have reached the UNAIDS 90- 90-90 targets.2 It is no coincidence that this period has resulted in the fastest economic growth in Africa’s history and has seen tremendous gains in other development indicators such as poverty alleviation, educational attainment, gender equity, and maternal and child health. Analysis comparing U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) recipient countries with similar non-PEPFAR supported low-and middle- income countries found that PEPFAR countries experienced 35 percent greater reductions in child mortality, 25 percent reductions in maternal mortality, and significant improvements in childhood immunizations. GDP per capita growth rates were 2.1 percentage points higher for PEPFAR countries compared to non-PEPFAR supported countries, and the share of girls and boys out of school declined by 9 and 8 percent respectively. The effects were strongest where PEPFAR engaged in more intensive planning and funding.3

Despite this progress, we are at a new inflection point in the HIV/AIDS pandemic in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic particularly impacted access to HIV prevention services, and the rate of decline of new infections has slowed. If the current pace continues, we will be off-track to reach the UNAIDS global target of 370,000 infections by 2025.

What is worse is that the most vulnerable populations continue to be at the highest risk. Approximately 52 percent of children living with HIV receive the lifesaving treatment they need, compared to 76 percent of adults.4 Adolescent girls and young women continue to be more than twice as likely to be infected relative to their male counterparts. And Key Populations (KP)–men who have sex with men, transgender persons, people who inject drugs, sex workers, incarcerated people)–make up an increasingly large share of new infections.

PEPFAR’s five-year strategy

To meet the moment in the trajectory of the HIV/AIDS response, we launched PEPFAR’s new 5-year strategy on December 1, 2022. The strategy outlines several areas that PEPFAR will be pursuing to help achieve the global goal of ending HIV/AIDS as a global health threat. There are three key areas where African policymakers have a unique role to play in the response.

1. Elevating HIV/AIDS to the highest levels of political leadership to sustain the response

The 2001 Abuja summit was a powerful example of African political leadership. African heads of state outlined concrete goals and commitments and helped to galvanize the global community to aid in the response. In the decade that followed, thanks in large part to continued African leadership and partnerships, 27 countries increased the proportion of their expenditures on health. However, the situation has deteriorated; in 2016, 19 African countries were spending less on health as a percentage of their public spending than the early 2000s, and only three countries exceeded the 15 percent threshold.5

New political leadership is needed to sustain progress. Over the next decade, HIV/AIDS programs should primarily become the responsibility of African countries as support from outside donors inevitably declines, even as PEPFAR continues its commitment to our partner countries. This should start with clear political commitments from Heads of States to lead and manage their own HIV response–by articulating and acting on their own vision and holding their ministries accountable for results. This will help to unlock greater programmatic leadership for the oversight and management of HIV prevention and care efforts, and the broader strengthening of health systems (workforce, labs, data and surveillance, supply chains, etc.) that underpin HIV/ AIDS programs.

In many countries, donors are currently performing many of the core functions around performance management and service delivery. Until countries take over programmatic accountability, the HIV/AIDS response will continue to be viewed as a donor-led activity. Over time, more robust political and programmatic leadership should help to unlock financial leadership as well by encouraging ministries of finance, and development to recognize that investing in HIV/AIDS and health systems programs domestically will yield high returns.

PEPFAR will help to enable these three components of sustaining the response by working with countries in partnership with the African Union (AU) and other regional and global entities to jointly develop a sustainability roadmap, articulating a shared pathway for countries to take increasing responsibility for their own epidemics and hold all parties accountable for results.

2. Improving health equity for priority populations

The HIV/AIDS pandemic does not affect people uniformly. We know that persistent inequities for the most marginalized populations persist—countries should address these inequities head-on to close these gaps. This starts with adolescent girls and young women, who remain disproportionately impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. Governments need to recommit to providing holistic, multi-layered support and enabling policy environments that for meet the needs of girls and women given the intersecting challenges they face that increases their risk for contracting HIV. This includes ensuring they can stay in school, access economic opportunities to earn livable incomes, receive comprehensive destigmatized sexual and reproductive health services like PrEP, and thrive in their daily lives free from violence.

Children remain less likely than their adult counterparts to receive treatment, despite the existence of highly effective pediatric treatments in the form of dolutegravir. This gap is unacceptable, and the seven countries that make up the roughly 80 percent of these missing children (Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) should especially double down on the funding and management of preventing mother to child transmission (PMTCT) and care linkage programming.

Lastly, Key Populations (KPs)—continue to bear the highest per capita risk of contracting an HIV infection. Governments and donors need to bring KPs and community organizations in the lead to inform the design and expansion of equitable and nondiscriminatory prevention, testing, and treatment services. Governments also need to look critically at the restrictive laws and policies that criminalize or stigmatize these populations and prevent them from accessing the services they need–and learn from peer countries in the region who have successfully pursued reforms.

3. Leveraging the PEPFAR platform to strengthen public health systems and health security

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent Ebola outbreak in Uganda, and other disease outbreaks, the public health infrastructure, relationships, and practices that PEPFAR has helped to establish and strengthen for HIV proved essential to responding to new and unexpected health threats. While maintaining focus on HIV as our core mission, moving forward, PEPFAR will continue to apply lessons learned from HIV and intentionally strengthen overall public health systems to respond to health security threats. Such investments will aim to protect HIV/AIDS gains and ensure increased sustainability for countries’ HIV/AIDS response.

Regionalized and modernized supply chains for health commodities

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the need for a robust regionally diversified, sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing and supply chain ecosystems to protect against health security threats, including in Africa. A strong, diversified, and sustainable manufacturing base would also decrease procurement costs, prevent stockouts, introduce new products faster, and create substantial economic benefits. However, between 70-90 percent of drugs consumed on the African continent are imported; (China and India have comparable populations and import 5 percent and 20 percent, respectively). For vaccines, only 1 percent of vaccines consumed are manufactured in Africa.6 For Africa to address this challenge, it needs a holistic approach and an enabling environment for sustainable regional manufacturing that allow manufacturers to supply multi-country geographies, promote healthy competition, and enables sizeable, sustainable manufacturers to emerge. PEPFAR will lead by setting explicit, ambitious targets for African procurement of HIV commodities for the next decade and will adjust our procurement policies to help jumpstart demand–and drive other donors to follow.

To create this enabling environment, we will need to work with African policymakers and multilateral organizations to develop tariff and trade policies, environmental policies, and regulatory policies to support sustainable local manufacturing capacities. It will also be critical for African policymakers to certify and fund the African Medicines Agency (AMA) to lead in certification of products and implement the African Free Trade agreement to enable cross-border trade. Leaders of global and African development finance institutions should take this opportunity to provide financing and other support to pharmaceutical manufacturers standing up or expanding operations and enhancements to health supply chains across the region.

But manufacturing is not enough to get the products to the people who need them quickly and efficiently. We continue to see high rates of stockouts across PEPFAR-supported countries, and our supply chains are simply not people-centered.

African policymakers need to promote a long-term vision for a modern and sustainable supply chain, which includes movement away from the emergency nature of Central Medical Stores and integration of private sector providers across the value chain; strengthening government capacity in supply chain leadership, oversight, comprehensive planning and risk management; and diversifying channels of last-mile delivery of products beyond the public clinics. Policymakers need to also recognize that supply chains go beyond ministries of health and engage the ministries of finance, development, and trade to remove bottlenecks that create artificial supply shortages at the port or the border. PEPFAR will coordinate with African partners and other donors to help to strengthen country capacity to lead in the development and implementation of this long-term approach to supply chain modernization.

Despite the lessons from Ebola, COVID-19 and other outbreaks, the health workforce remains one of the most under-invested areas of the public health system. Africa needs 6,000 field and 25,000 frontline epidemiologists but has only trained 2,000 and 5,000 respectively. In 2017, the AU launched a two million community healthcare worker initiative, but to date only a few hundred thousand professionalized workers have been deployed, and many remain un-salaried, and poorly trained, equipped, and supervised. Nurses continue to be under-equipped and poorly prepared for new outbreaks, leading to high rates of mortality among their cohort.

Country leaders need to bring together ministries of health, education, and finance to develop an integrated plan to train, finance, and support the next cohort of nurses, community health workers, epidemiologists, and health data scientists. PEPFAR and other disease-specific donors need to align their future health workforce investments to better support those integrated country plans and, workforce leadership programs going forward.

Empowered national public health institutes

National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) serve as the backbone of an effective public health response; during COVID-19, countries with strong NPHIs were more effective in coordinating the outbreak response. More than 30 African countries have already created NPHIs, and for those countries it is incumbent on political leaders to financially support their core capabilities (surveillance, lab networks, emergency operations centers, research). PEPFAR will work to strengthen NPHIs by partnering with the Africa CDC to enlist NPHIs to lead on core HIV-control functions such as conducting household surveys to measure the epidemiological change in the disease and leveraging their EOCs to tackle pockets of new infections.

PEPFAR has a critical role to play in the future of the HIV/AIDS response. But without leadership from policymakers, all our collective efforts will be unsustainable. African leaders need to recognize that strong public health systems are a fundamental element of strong national security and economic growth, and prioritize it accordingly in domestic budgets, laws, and policies. Country leaders also should endorse, fund, and strengthen regional institutions such as the Africa CDC and AMA who are taking a lead in coordinating the health response. Disease-specific donors including PEPFAR need to come together to harmonize and prioritize public health systems and security investments, and support country leadership in developing and implementing integrated national plans. We have come so far, and together we can end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat on the continent and globally.

Leveraging lessons from COVID-19 to build stronger health systems

Edwine Barasa

Director of the Nairobi Programme, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust
Visiting Professor of Health Economics, University of Oxford

Sir Winston Churchill averred, in the aftermath of World War II, that one should never let a “good” crisis go to waste. The COVID-19 pandemic offered several lessons for Africa’s health systems that should form the basis for a stronger, more inclusive recovery. One such lesson is that African governments ought to prioritize investments in the health sector as a means, not only to improve population health, but also to safeguard the economy. African health systems are chronically underfunded; it is estimated that on average African countries’ government expenditure on health, as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), is 2 percent—far less than the 5 percent recommended threshold for low- and middle-income countries to register meaningful improvements in population health outcomes.7 Under-investment in the health sector meant that African health systems were ill-prepared for the pandemic, and thus, suffered great economic loss.

One way to unlock additional financing and resources for the health sector is to exploit efficiency gains by reducing wastage. Two strategies are worth considering. African countries could achieve better outcomes from existing resources by introducing and institutionalizing the use of economic evidence to guide and inform healthcare resource allocation decisions in ways that promote value-for-money. One such approach is health technology assessment (HTA). HTA is a multidisciplinary process that uses explicit methods to determine the value of health interventions and services in ways that promote efficiency and other health system goals. Good examples of countries that have implemented HTA to improve the efficiency of their health system include Thailand’s universal coverage scheme, and the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). Likewise, there is also a need for African governments to tackle corruption head-on by implementing effective anti-corruption strategies. Some estimates put the loss of healthcare resources owing to weak governance and accountability environments that in turn facilitate health sector corruption to as much as 10 percent annually.8

The second lesson is that African countries ought to foster self-reliance by investing in the manufacture of essential health commodities. The vaccine nationalism and apartheid witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with international supply chain disruptions, exposed the vulnerability of African health systems to over-reliance on imports. Some estimates indicate that Africa imports more than 80 percent of its pharmaceutical and medical consumables, and 99 percent of its human vaccines.9 It is encouraging that several African countries have since initiated plans to establish local vaccine manufacturing. African governments must also understand that the sustainable development of vaccines and pharmaceutical manufacturing is underpinned by a vibrant research and development (R&D) ecosystem. While African countries have committed to spending 1 percent of their GDP on R&D, the continent’s funding of R&D stood at only 0.42 percent, compared to the global average of 1.7 percent.10

The third lesson is that African governments must re-prioritize universal health coverage (UHC). COVID-19 revealed that countries with advanced UHC systems are far better at responding to a pandemic or health shock.11 A system where individuals face financial barriers to access healthcare, compromises vital public health strategies during a disease outbreak (i.e., detect, isolate, and treat) such that infected individuals go undetected and cannot access isolation or treatment services, and thus continue to spread disease. While many African countries have made political commitments to UHC, this commitment has hardly translated to investment and implementation. Out-of-pocket spending, as a share of total health spending, in Africa is also among the highest in the world at 38 percent—with countries like Nigeria having levels as high as 77 percent.12 During the pandemic, this manifested in the form of individuals not accessing testing, isolation, and treatment because they could not afford to pay for these services, and in some cases, individuals are being forcefully detained in health facilities for not being able to pay the costs of isolation or care.

In addition to increasing health sector funding, several shifts will be required to course correct the continent’s UHC aspiration. The first shift is the need for African countries to re-orient their UHC plans and ground them on tax-funded approaches as opposed to contributory health insurance. Many African countries are planning or already implementing public health insurance systems that rely on individual/household premium contributions as a means to achieve UHC. There is overwhelming evidence that it is problematic to achieve scale and equity in coverage, with health insurance systems that rely on individual/household premium contributions—especially in Africa where large shares (up to 80 percent) of the population are in the informal sector with unpredictable and irregular incomes. A recent analysis found that only four out of 36 African countries (Rwanda, Ghana, Gabon, and Burundi) have achieved health insurance coverage levels greater than 20 percent, and that coverage for all four countries, was characterised by substantial funding from tax revenues.13

Contributory health insurance systems were also found to be highly inequitable on the continent. A third shift is the prioritization and financing of common goods for health (CGH). CGH are core, population-based functions that are essential to the health and wellbeing of entire societies, as opposed to individual-based services. Examples of CGH include disease surveillance systems, research and development, regulatory systems, and public health policies. CGH not only support the health and wellbeing of populations generally, but also bolster health security.

Lastly, several regional opportunities abound for African governments to leverage and strengthen their health systems. I will highlight two here. First, African leaders should take advantage of regional integration to strengthen healthcare markets and systems. The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), is the world’s largest free trade area in terms of population (1.3 billion) and number of countries (54), and has the potential to spur the growth of Africa’s health markets by opening up markets for labour (health workers) and health commodities, and by attracting investments into the continent’s health sector. In addition, it has the potential to support the continent’s initiative to develop vaccines and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Another regional opportunity that African health systems should take advantage of is, the continent’s strong regional organizations that include the African Union (AU), the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), and the African Development Bank (AFDB). These organizations not only have immense convening power, technical capacity, and capacity for advocacy, but they have also put in place initiatives whose implementation will leapfrog Africa’s health system. For instance, the AU and Africa CDC have outlined a blueprint to strengthen health security in Africa labelled the “New Public Health Order.” The AU has articulated a plan to spur pharmaceutical manufacturing—Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA), while the Africa CDC has also laid out a framework for the development of local vaccine manufacturing (the partnership for Africa Vaccine manufacturing). Further, the AFDB has established the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, that plans to spend $3 billion over the next decade to support the continent’s pharmaceutical and vaccine manufacturing plans. However, these efforts will only be successful if African governments support and facilitate the leadership role of these regional agencies.

As we look forward to 2023 and beyond, here is hoping that African governments learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and invest in nurturing the resilience of the continent’s health system to safeguard

African policymakers and leaders were urged to prioritize investment in health systems, revise universal health coverage (UHC) plans towards tax-funded approaches, and strengthen public health capacity through platforms like PEPFAR and collaborations with donors to modernize supply chains.

A survey found that 72% of cancer centers reported ongoing shortages of carboplatin and 59% of cisplatin, leading to situations where doctors in the United States were unable to provide life-saving cancer treatment to patients, even in 2023.

Global AIDS response consultations highlighted the need to build on emergency innovations developed during COVID-19, address structural barriers, and restore full program capacity.

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Consultation calls for the global AIDS response to build on emergency adaptations to COVID-19, tackle structural barriers and ensure that country programmes fully recover from COVID-19 disruptions and end AIDS

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03 FEBRUARY 2022

As the Omicron variant surges through communities and health systems already stretched to the breaking point by two years of COVID-19, HIV programme managers and community representatives gathered virtually to review efforts to keep the AIDS response on track and propose ways to better overcome the challenges caused by two clashing pandemics.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health services worldwide, at different times and in different ways, and it continues to do so,” UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director, Programme, a.i., Eamonn Murphy said at the opening of the consultation. “But at the same time we’re hearing great successes. Stories and data of impressive resilience and programmatic rebound are increasingly being documented and researched.”

The participants identified the most effective innovations that have allowed HIV services to continue to reach those who need them the most and proposed follow-up research and actions that can help guard against future waves of COVID-19 infections.

“We have learned so much over the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anticipating the worst, countries and communities rallied effectively to adapt and maintain most HIV services. These global efforts have meant that although there have been gaps and disruptions to services, and some catch-up will be needed, most people living with HIV continued successfully on treatment,” said Meg Doherty, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes.

Networks of people living with HIV and key populations at higher risk of HIV infection warned that the often life-saving adaptations made to HIV services have not addressed the stigma, discrimination and structural barriers they face in their day-to-day lives. In addition, COVID-19 has left many even more vulnerable to depression, violence and other harms.

“People are working hard to ensure that treatment is still available and accessible, but people have also lost livelihoods during COVID-19, and they have taken on additional community and family responsibilities,” said Florence Anam, a Programme Manager at the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+). “Strengthening of community systems of health, and the integration of mental health and psychosocial support is more important now than ever. We need to focus on reducing inequities and ensuring that people are economically empowered enough to meet their basic needs as much as possible.”

Country data collected by UNAIDS, WHO, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) and the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) show that HIV service disruptions were most severe during the first lockdowns that many countries put in place in early to mid-2020. A combination of movement restrictions and health systems overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases cut off many people living with HIV from the daily medicines they need to stay healthy. HIV testing, the enrolment of people newly diagnosed onto treatment and the provision of HIV prevention tools such as condoms and pre-exposure prophylaxis nearly ground to a halt. Voluntary medical male circumcision, health services for transgender people and other elective medical procedures were suspended altogether in many countries.

Prolonged service interruptions could have led to a wave of AIDS-related illnesses and deaths, undermining decades of efforts to contain the HIV virus. Programmes across the world scrambled to find new ways to reach people living with HIV and the key populations who are at highest risk of HIV infection.

These measures included working with affected communities to deliver antiretroviral medicines door to door and to increase the quantity of medicines provided during each visit in order to reduce the frequency of medical appointments. This multimonth dispensing of antiretroviral medicines has been recommended by WHO since 2016, as it is easier for the patient and reduces the workload of the health system.

Most HIV treatment programmes quickly rebounded after adaptations were put in place.

“The data show that most national HIV treatment programmes in low- and middle-income countries responded with extraordinary resilience to protect 20 years of hard-earned gains through rapid adoption of COVID-19 adaptations,” said Siobhan Crowley, Head of HIV at the Global Fund. “The strong HIV services platform and highly engaged HIV civil society are well poised to serve as an important foundation for integrated services to tackle COVID-19 and other public health threats, but increased investment from all stakeholders is needed to sustain and build on these impressive achievements.”

Irum Zaidi, the Deputy Coordinator at the Office of the United States Global AIDS Coordinator, stressed that the strengthening of health information systems and the adoption of people-centred approaches in the years before COVID-19 was critical to the rapid reaction to the challenges created by the new pandemic.

“Over the past four years, PEPFAR and partner country governments collaborated to implement WHO policies and adaptations for providing people-centred clinical HIV services,” Ms Zaidi said. “These adaptations were rapidly scaled during COVID-19, establishing a flexible service delivery environment to keep individuals on lifelong antiretroviral therapy during COVID-19 surges. Granular real-time data along with PEPFAR’s commitment provided a path forward to support governments and beneficiaries during this unprecedented time.”

Efforts to expand access to a relatively new and promising HIV prevention option—antiretroviral medicines pre-emptively taken by people at higher risk of infection, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP—were also rapidly adjusted to overcome COVID-19 challenges. Those adaptations have included the shifting of clinical consultations to telemedicine and outdoor settings, the use of social media for virtual adherence support and home delivery of PrEP pills. Expansion of self-testing for HIV has helped to maintain the expansion of both PrEP and HIV treatment.

“We need to keep building the resilience that HIV services have shown by prioritizing person-centred differentiated service delivery in response to challenges posed by COVID-19,” said Adeeba Kamarulzaman, the President of the International AIDS Society.

The consultation looked ahead to a future where the COVID-19 response transitions from an acute pandemic phase to a more sustained control programme, similar to the responses to HIV, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

The participants agreed that, even within a best-case scenario, it will be important to build on emergency adaptations by establishing a more enabling environment for the populations who currently struggle to access services, and to ensure that HIV programmes can fully recover from COVID-19 shocks and reach the global goal of ending the AIDS pandemic by 2030.

“Perhaps one of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic is how it sparked innovation and inspired their rapid adoption by countries and communities. These will have not only a positive and durable effect on the HIV response but offer models for others to adapt in tackling other health challenges,” said Wafaa El-Sadr, the founder and Director of ICAP.

The consultation, held on 1 and 2 February, was co-organized by UNAIDS, WHO, the Global Fund, PEPFAR, the International AIDS Society and ICAP at Columbia University.

Countries worldwide scrambled to adapt outreach for HIV services, especially to high-risk populations, amidst the pandemic's constraints on regular service delivery.

Widespread substandard medications posed an additional risk, with patients failing to improve despite accurate diagnosis and prescription, frustrating both patients and healthcare staff.

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In-depth: A Dollar a Dose, a Life Saved: The search for safer pharmaceuticals amid the challenge of widespread substandard medications

By Million Beyene @MillionBeyene

Addis Abeba – In the world of illicit trade, a dangerous threat looms in the form of substandard and illegally sold pharmaceuticals that endanger millions of lives worldwide.

A recent study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) has uncovered the massive scale of this problem, revealing that the illicit drug trade generates nearly a trillion dollars annually.

Surprisingly, this makes it the second-largest illicit financial stream globally, coming in just behind arms sales. However, the true impact of this hidden industry extends far beyond just monetary value.

In sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, the cost is counted in human lives.

Every year, almost half a million individuals fall victim to the dangerous consequences of using substandard and counterfeit medical products.

The ramifications of this issue are severe, as individuals often unwittingly procure and consume medications that prove to be ineffectual or even detrimental to their well-being.

The recent experience of Getachew Belay, a resident of Addis Abeba, serves as a poignant illustration of the predicament faced by such individuals.

He told Addis Standard about the distressing ordeal of procuring medications at a substantial cost of 90,000 birr, only to find them ineffective in treating his mother’s liver disease.

Regrettably, despite the doctor’s acknowledgment of the ineffectiveness of the “albumin” medication and subsequent refusal to administer it, this intervention was belated.

“Consequently, my mother succumbed to her condition shortly after discontinuing the ineffective treatment and before a suitable alternative could be provided,” recounted Getachew, reflecting on the most devastating experience of his life.

Dr. Mehari Tesfaye (name changed), a prominent medical director at a public hospital in Addis Abeba, shared insights with Addis Standard regarding Ethiopia’s escalating issue of substandard medications.

According to him, a notable example is “albumin,” a vital medicine employed in treating liver disease.

“The substandard variants of this medication are not only ineffective but also potentially harmful,” he emphasized, underscoring the peril associated with such drugs.

A nationwide study conducted in 2013 found that 7.8% of medications in Ethiopia were substandard.

Nevertheless, medical experts interviewed by Addis Standard disclosed that the incidence of substandard drugs has notably increased in Ethiopia over the past decade.

This observation aligns with research findings.

According to a study published last year, 21.8% of the drugs sampled in Ethiopia exhibited failures in one of the product quality parameters: dissolution, disintegration, identity, or chemical assay.

An anonymous medical expert disclosed the extensive availability of substandard, illicitly manufactured, or imported drugs in numerous pharmacies throughout Addis Abeba.

The expert highlighted a particularly troubling trend: the heightened involvement of licensed drug importers in the illicit drug trade, particularly over the past two years.

In Ethiopia, a particularly troubling issue arises from the presence of ineffective medications, even among those legally imported.

Medical experts have apprised Addis Standard of instances where drugs lack medicinal properties, aligning with public grievances about medications failing to provide therapeutic benefits.

Dr. Solomon Tezera (name changed), an infectious disease specialist, is among the medical professionals who express profound concern regarding the prevalence of ineffective medications.

“These concerns extend beyond smuggled drugs to encompass medications legally imported by some organizations,” he states. “Patients diagnosed through lab tests and prescribed medication often fail to experience improvement due to these defective products, resulting in a frustrating situation for both patients and medical staff.”

Patients diagnosed through lab tests and prescribed medication often fail to experience improvement due to substandard medications.”

An infectious disease specialist

Dr. Solomon further emphasizes the critical role of effective medications in managing chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. He underscores that substandard medications for these illnesses can lead to a rapid exacerbation of symptoms.

“Medical professionals have recently identified and reported these problematic drugs to the appropriate regulatory bodies,” he added.

Recently, the Ethiopian Diabetic Association (EDA) also raised concerns about the efficacy of a medication named ‘Galvanez’.

Tackling substandard medications

The Ethiopian Food and Drug Authority (EFDA), a governmental regulatory body responsible for ensuring the safety, quality, and efficacy of medicines, has addressed these concerns.

Officials from the EFDA have stated that no official reports regarding the specific medication in question have been filed.

Gezahegn Endale, the head of the EFDA’s South East Addis Abeba Branch Office, affirmed, “No reports of substandard or defective medications related to Galvanez have been presented to the authority thus far.”

While no issues with Galvanez have been reported, the EFDA has noted a concerning trend of unauthorized drugs entering the country. These drugs often lack registration, approval from their country of origin, and information about their manufacturers.

Additionally, the EFDA recognizes the ongoing challenge of smuggled medications, particularly those targeting critical areas such as cancer treatment. The Authority has stated its active efforts to strengthen controls at border entry and exit points.

In a recent statement, the EFDA underscored its commitment to “identifying and removing any smuggled drugs to safeguard public health.” The authority highlighted its rigorous protocols for ensuring the safety and efficacy of all medications entering the Ethiopian market.

This includes thorough pre-market registration checks, which meticulously examine a drug’s production methods, ingredient lists, and accompanying scientific documentation before granting a market license.

Furthermore, to ensure quality, imported medications undergo extensive sampling, testing, and verification procedures beyond registration. Additionally, the EFDA conducts physical inspections at entry and exit points to enhance its safeguards.

Acknowledging the challenge of precisely quantifying the volume of smuggled drugs, officials at the EFDA assert that their regulatory measures are more stringent compared to those of neighboring countries. They underscore their “continuous endeavors to ensure the quality, safety, and efficacy of medications” across the entire supply chain.

However, stakeholders emphasize that the shortage of legally imported medications has compelled certain private pharmacies, licensed drug importers, and domestic drug producers to resort to smuggled alternatives.

Dr. Mehari underscored the challenges Ethiopia encounters in securing an adequate supply of legal medications.

“This susceptibility exposes the population to the hazards of smuggled drugs,” he elucidated. “Patients who unwittingly depend on substandard medications are at an elevated risk of complications.”

Gezahegn acknowledges the potential vulnerabilities within the distribution system and unethical practices by some wholesalers, such as auctioning off medications of dubious origin to retailers, which could introduce smuggled or unregistered drugs.

“The recent license revocation of four wholesalers supplying unregistered drugs to St. Paul Millennium Medical College’s Hospital exemplifies the EFDA’s commitment to addressing such practices,” he highlights.

Forex shortage, soaring prices

However, Gezahegn attributes a significant factor in such health risks to the scarcity of foreign currency in the country.

“This limitation restricts the ability of importers to acquire essential medications in sufficient quantities, potentially leading to drug shortages,” he explains.

Ethiopia meets the yearly requirement for medications and medical equipment primarily through imports, as domestic production satisfies only 15% of the national demand.

The Ethiopian Pharmaceuticals Supply Service (EPSS) oversees the acquisition of drugs and medical equipment, whether sourced locally or imported.

The scarcity of foreign currency in the country restricts the ability of importers to acquire essential medications in sufficient quantities, potentially leading to drug shortages.”

Gezahegn Endale, the head of the EFDA’s South East Addis Abeba Branch Office

Annually, EPSS supplies over 1,000 medicines and medical equipment to more than 5,000 public health institutions. In the previous year, it allocated over 40 billion birr for the procurement of drugs and medical equipment, with drug procurement alone amounting to over 15 billion birr.

Dr. Solomon further contends that the limited availability of foreign currency is hampering the capacity of local pharmaceutical manufacturers to import essential raw materials necessary for drug production.

Leaders of the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association also attribute their underperformance to the unavailability of foreign currency. They highlighted that 85% of the challenges they face are related to foreign currency shortages.

Mukamil Abdella, vice president of the association, recently stated in a state media interview that foreign currency is not accessible in the required quantity and timeframe for procuring raw materials essential for medicine production, adversely affecting their operations.

Another senior manager from a local pharmaceutical company disclosed that his firm requested $21 million for the acquisition of raw materials and other essentials. However, after an 11-month waiting period, the company was only allocated $5 million, which proved insufficient.

The persistent scarcity of foreign currency in Ethiopia continues to render the nation vulnerable to the influx of smuggled drugs, exacerbated by disruptions in the global supply chain that have led to inflated prices for pharmaceutical products.

Studies indicate that disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, further compounded by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have resulted in a more than 200% increase in drug costs.

During his appearance before parliament to present the central bank’s quarterly report in November 2023, Mamo Mihretu, the governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), acknowledged the escalating pharmaceutical costs, which are depleting the country’s foreign currency reserves.

According to Mamo, the costs of three key import items for Ethiopia—pharmaceuticals, petroleum, and fertilizers—have more than doubled in the past three years.

Although acknowledging that Ethiopia encounters obstacles in ensuring a consistent provision of legally imported medications due to factors such as limited foreign currency reserves, public health experts contend that these challenges should not serve as justification for the increase in illegal drug trafficking and the availability of substandard drugs in pharmacies.

Officials, however, assert that they are actively addressing the issue of smuggled medications despite the persistent challenge of detecting and eliminating any illicit drugs that may already be present within the country.

“The Authority is intensifying surveillance at entry points to deter smuggling,” stated Gezahegn. AS

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Foreign currency shortages in some countries restricted importers’ ability to procure essential medications, further exacerbating drug shortages.

Shortages included not just medicines but also essential supplies like condoms, impacting public health services.

Title:

Content: BONELA calls for axing of incompetent medical supply officers

  • Says shortage of medicines is a matter of life and death
  • MoH blames it on COVID-19

GAZETTE REPORTER

The Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) has called on President Mokgweetsi Masisi to fire incompetent officers for their failure to procure medicines and drugs for public health facilities.

The Assistant Minister of Health and Wellness (MoH), Sethomo Lelatisitswe, recently told Parliament that public health facilities were running short of medicines and condoms, saying the situation was being addressed.

According to BONELA, the situation got worse after the outbreak of COVID-19.

In an interview with The Botswana Gazette this week, the Executive Director of BONELA, Cindy Kelemi, said those responsible for the dearth of drugs and medicines should be fired.

“There is a serious shortage of medicines,” Kelemi said. “Whether you are talking about hypertension medication or anti-retroviral drugs, there are shortages. This is a concern for us because BONELA exists to ensure that the right to health is made a reality in Botswana.”

“The question we often ask is what the ministry is doing to address this, especially for people in hard-to-reach areas? We have always maintained that we have not explored fully our procurement potential, including looking at the private sector.”

She added that in addition to medicines and drugs, condoms are also in short supply at public health facilities. “We have had condom shortages since last year and we were informed that logistical problems were preventing distribution of a donation through the US embassy,” she said. “Central Medical Stores must understand that this is a life and death situation.”

Kelemi expressed hope that the budgetary vote for MoH being the largest, medical supplies to public health facilities will be replenished.

“But we had this problem even before COVID-19,” she noted. “This goes to show that we can throw money at a problem when there are underlying problems.”

The Chief Public Relations Officer at MoH, Dr Christopher Nyanga , has acknowledged the shortage of medicines and drugs at public health facilities but blames it on COVID-19 slowing down production and delivery timelines.

“Health facilities in Botswana and across the world have been experiencing shortages and delayed delivery of certain drugs and medical supplies,” Nyanga said.

He added that the problem has become more pronounced since the last quarter of the 2020/2021 financial year.

Authorities often attributed shortages of medicines and supplies to the ongoing effects of COVID-19.


AI voice cloning technology is rapidly improving, allowing for the creation of convincing voiceovers in up to 24 languages and easily adapting to language and cultural nuances.

ElevenLabs, an American AI company, has developed a new tool that can clone voices using only a three-second audio sample and text, enabling even personas like Donald Trump to speak flawless Hindi.

AI voice cloning serves various purposes, from entertainment and accessibility to the creation of engaging educational content and linguistic experimentation.

This technology can be used for profit, as some creators see it as a promising income source, and companies like Vidnoz AI are making it easy to produce AI-generated videos and clone user voices with just a short audio sample.

Vidnoz AI features a broad range of services, including celebrity voice cloning, avatar presenters, and a large library of music and templates, some of which are accessible for free.

PlayHT Studio and similar platforms offer AI voices that can help with accent training and language learning.

Meta AI has engineered a speech translator to bridge gaps for languages that are primarily spoken, further demonstrating the technology’s accessibility and global potential.

Media companies are now producing AI-dubbed documentaries, showing how AI can expand international communication.

On the negative side, law enforcement warns that AI voice cloning can be abused for fraud, such as extorting money by imitating loved ones.

Music labels are concerned about the misuse of AI in generating realistic but unauthorized voices in songs, as seen with AI tracks featuring voices of celebrities like Drake and The Weeknd.

The rapid evolution of this technology—unimaginable just a year ago—was enabled by training models with thousands of hours of voice data that learned not only speech but also delivery style.

AI voice cloning technology is rapidly improving, allowing for the creation of convincing voiceovers in up to 24 languages and easily adapting to language and cultural nuances.

Title:

Content: Language No Barrier: New AI tool can clone voice and make it say anything in multiple languages

Imagine former US President Donald Trump speaking in flawless Hindi. A new AI voice cloning tool by ElevenLabs can clone voices and make them say anything in a bunch of different languages. All it needs is a three-second sample clip and a bit of text as the prompt.

Mehul Reuben Das May 03, 2023 13:42:20 IST

Imagine former US President Donald Trump speaking in flawless Hindi. A new AI voice cloning tool by ElevenLabs can clone voices and make them say anything in a bunch of different languages. All it needs is a three-second sample clip and a bit of text as the prompt.

As advanced as AI-based voice cloning has been, there were a few limitations to it. For example, voice generators were mainly bound by the language of the source they were trained in or rather the language of the prompt that was given to them. Now, ElevenLabs, an American AI software developing company has come up with a tool that does away with that limitation.

ElevenLabs’ new AI tool can clone the voice of a person and make it say anything in a bunch of different languages. All it needs is a clear voice sample of about 3 seconds, although it also suggests that the longer the sample, the better will be the results. The new tool even manages to maintain the speaker’s original tone of voice.

Limitless possibilities
The creators expect that this would ‘extend the possibilities’ in a variety of industries such as publishing, gaming creation, and media. “Introducing Eleven Multilingual v1: Our New Speech Synthesis Model! We’re thrilled to launch our new model supporting seven new languages: French, German, Hindi, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish.”

“This advancement expands the horizons for creators, game developers, and publishers, and it paves the way for using generative media to create more localized, accessible, and imaginative content,” the company said.

Following the announcement, Twitter was flooded with comments, with users testing the software on various famous faces.

To demonstrate just how capable the new voice cloning AI tool is, Eluna AI, a platform for AI-content creators experimented with a sample clip of former US President Donald Trump.

In their demo, Eluna AI showcased a small clip of Donald Trump, speaking in his native tongue, English, followed by French, Spanish, German, Hindi and Italian, almost perfectly. The generated samples even gets the accent right, almost if he was a native speaker of the new target language.

Another user changed David Attenborough’s voice to German while the BBC broadcaster discussed the prospects of AI. “With this tool, anyone can do it,” stated the Twitter user. “It’s also worth noting that fraudsters will undoubtedly exploit this one.”

ElevenLabs says that its model was designed to understand the emotion and reasoning underlying words in order to produce natural-sounding and persuasive audio. ElevenLabs has said that some numerals and symbols are currently spoken wrongly, but that it is striving to rectify this.

Who is this new tool meant to help?
The US-based company believes its technology will be valuable in a variety of areas, including education and journalism.

Game developers and publishers can build engaging, localised experiences for worldwide audiences, breaking through language barriers and connecting with players and listeners to maximise engagement and efficiency while maintaining quality and accuracy.

“Educational institutions now have the ability to develop audio content for varied users in their target languages, enhancing language comprehension and even pronunciation abilities, as well as responding to different teaching methods and learning demands,” says the report.

Because of the model’s capacity to produce unique character-like voices, audiobook and content developers may also find it beneficial.

The conundrum of AI voice genertors
Despite its benefits, ElevenLabs’ launch comes amid widespread concern about the wave of new voice cloning technology. An unidentified TikTok user went popular last month after sharing an AI-generated Drake song starring The Weeknd.

It sparked concerns about the grey area of AI-created music and whether it constitutes a copyright violation. Nonetheless, ElevenLabs claims to be ‘fully committed’ to respecting creators’ rights in the midst of technological advancements.

“At Eleven, we think that we should seek to make the best use of emerging technology, but not at any expense,” it stated.

“As we create them, we make every effort to put suitable controls in place that reduce the possibility of detrimental abuse. With this in mind, we are entirely committed to both protecting intellectual property rights and taking action against infringement.”

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Someone used AI to create a whole new song featuring Drake and The Weeknd. But because the singers never sang the song, artists and music labels are worried, how AI voice modulation and AI-generated songs can disrupt the industry.

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Artificial Imposter: 47% of Indian phone users have experienced AI voice scams, highest in the world

About half of Indian adults, or 47%, have experienced AI voice scams, nearly double the global average of 25%. Furthermore, nearly 69% of adults say they can't differentiate between a real and an AI-generated voice.

Deepdub, a film dubbing company, uses an AI to process voice and translate into a different language and promises to preserve what?

How will AI Voice help educators with building courses?

ElevenLabs, an American AI company, has developed a new tool that can clone voices using only a three-second audio sample and text, enabling even personas like Donald Trump to speak flawless Hindi.

What is necessary for voice cloning to work?

AI voice cloning serves various purposes, from entertainment and accessibility to the creation of engaging educational content and linguistic experimentation.

How will educational institutions benefit from developing AI voice audio content for languages learners?

This technology can be used for profit, as some creators see it as a promising income source, and companies like Vidnoz AI are making it easy to produce AI-generated videos and clone user voices with just a short audio sample.

Title:

Content: Vidnoz AI: The Effortless Tool to Create Stunning AI Videos in Minutes

In Short
  • Vidnoz AI offers tools to create engaging AI videos, including 1000+ AI avatars, 1000+ video templates, and 800+ realistic AI voices.
  • Users can produce 1-3 minutes of AI-generated scripts, create their custom AI avatar, or clone their voice using Vidnoz AI for free.
  • The Vidnoz platform is user-friendly and even a beginner can start creating professional-quality videos in just minutes.

Suppose you are looking for a way to create engaging video content with the help of AI. In that case, Vidnoz AI brings a solid platform where you can produce professional-quality AI videos in minutes. No expensive gear or equipment is required. Vidnoz AI offers hundreds of studio-quality AI avatars, video templates, and an extensive library of AI voices to generate impressive content at a fraction of the cost.

So, if you want to simplify and automate the video production process for your TikTok or YouTube channel, check out all the cool features Vidnoz AI offers below.

Create Videos from Text Scripts

The most compelling feature of Vidnoz AI is that you can create AI videos from text in just a few minutes. You have to select a template from its large library of amazing layouts, and you are good to go.

Now, all you need to do is enter the text you want the AI avatar to narrate or simply generate an AI script. You only have to give basic information about the topic you wish to discuss and the AI Script tool will instantly generate the content for you.

You can even change the tone of the scripts, choosing between formal, professional, friendly, or casual. Moreover, you can also choose a non-English language as Vidnoz AI supports more than 140 languages, both global and regional languages from across the world.

Not only that, you can add a voiceover to your AI video by selecting a voice from its library of 800+ voices. The voices can be filtered based on language, gender, emotion, scenarios, professions, and age. In addition, you can upload your voice and clone that too within minutes. Vidnoz AI voices are powered by Elevenlabs and Microsoft.

Basically, Vidnoz AI provides all kinds of pre-made assets keeping user requirements in mind and, on top of that, allows personalization too. If you’re looking for a service that can generate AI videos in a matter of a few minutes, Vidnoz is a platform you must check out.

Create Custom Virtual AI Avatars

While Vidnoz offers more than 1,000 realistic AI avatars, you can also create your own custom AI avatar. You simply have to shoot a selfie video for 3 to 5 minutes and upload the video to Vidnoz AI. It will process your uploaded video and create a custom AI avatar for you.

Apart from that, you can also create a talking face from your photo. Just upload one of your photos, and Vidnoz removes the background and creates a talking face for videos with a perfect lip sync. This comes in handy for those who want to personalize AI videos in no time.

Clone Your Voice with Emotions

If you want to clone your voice to narrate content in AI videos with your accent and emotions intact, Vidnoz AI allows you to do that too.

Simply record your voice for 1 to 3 minutes in your desired tone and emotion, and upload the audio file on Vidnoz AI. It will process the file and create a clone of your voice in barely a few minutes. To narrate any script, you can use your cloned voice, which will save you a lot of time and effort.

Suitable for All Platforms and Use Cases

What I love the most about Vidnoz AI is that it’s not limited to only making tutorials, but it unlocks applications for a large number of use cases and platforms. For example, Vidnoz AI offers templates for explainer videos, tutorials, breaking news templates for media companies, educational content, social media content, and much more.

Moreover, you can create AI videos for health and medical content, sports, e-commerce, festivals, presentations, invitations, and more. There are so many templates to choose from and it supports both landscape and vertical orientations. For social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts, vertical content can help you reach out to a large number of audiences.

AI Video Translator

In today’s age, content creators and news platforms have a global audience and videos are watched in many non-English speaking regions. Therefore, you can translate videos in different languages using Vidnoz AI’s powerful AI video translator tool to cater to all kinds of audiences.

You can simply upload the video in the original language and choose the output language of your choice. You can also add subtitles and lip-sync the video based on the new language. During my testing, Vidnoz AI did pretty well and the lip-sync was on point. Within a few minutes, the tool translated the whole video.

Vidnoz AI supports video translation for 140+ languages, including Spanish, French, Arabic, German, Hindi, Bengali, and more.

Easy AI Video Editing

Now, we come to the Vidnoz AI video editor which is frankly the best feature of this tool. It has a clean and straightforward user interface that even beginners can start using instantly. Apart from generating AI scripts, creating custom avatars, and cloning your voice, you can further modify the template according to your preference.

Each element of the template is customizable, you can edit text, change the font, add your logo, insert stickers, shape, add layers, and do much more. The best part is that it brings stock videos and images from other providers as well, including Pexels, Unsplash, Freepik, etc. And for background music, you have a large library of audio available in the video editor itself.

Next, you can add multiple scenes with different layouts and create AI videos, going beyond the given template. Vidnoz AI also supports dual-mode conversation where you can add two AI avatars in a scene and add scripts for each character.

Finally, you can preview the video before exporting, but the lip-syncing video is only generated after you hit the Generate button.

More Vidnoz AI Tools

Apart from creating AI videos, there are many AI tools that Vidnoz AI offers that can aid in various aspects of content creation. You can use AI text-to-speech to convert your text to realistic voice in more than 140+ languages. Next, you can change the presenter’s voice to any celebrity voice such as Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Morgan Freeman, and more.

To effortlessly generate a video from an image, you can use its AI image-to-video tool. You can turn a static image into a dancing video as well. Vidnoz AI also brings an AI video enhancer tool to upscale your videos up to 4K resolution. Finally, you have AI vocal remover, background remover, cartoon generator, headshot generator, and more.

Vidnoz AI: Pricing and Plans

Vidnoz AI offers most of its services for free with access to 1000+ AI avatars, video templates, and voices. Under the free plan, you can generate videos for 1-3 minutes per day at 720p resolution.

If you are serious about content creation and making money using AI, I would recommend getting the Starter plan which costs $19.99 per month on a yearly subscription. It unlocks video generation for up to 15 minutes per month with access to a larger library of AI avatars, video templates, and voices. You can also export videos in 1080p resolution. Vidnoz AI doesn’t add a watermark at all when you get the Starter plan.

The Business plan costs $56.99 per month, which allows you to generate 30 minutes of videos per month and throws the Voice Cloning feature into the mix. You have all of the Starter plan features too. So if you are impressed with Vidnoz AI’s features, go ahead and check out the service.

What is necessary for voice cloning to work?

Vidnoz AI features a broad range of services, including celebrity voice cloning, avatar presenters, and a large library of music and templates, some of which are accessible for free.

PlayHT Studio and similar platforms offer AI voices that can help with accent training and language learning.

Title:

Content: British Text to Speech & Accent Generator

Speak with Authority: British Text-to-Speech Voices for AI Driven Narrations

With a repertoire of over 40 diverse British English accents, effortlessly bring your text to speech with PlayHT`s AI voices and speech synthesis. Whether you`re creating a documentary, creating a health and safety video, or localizing your multimedia ads, convert text to voice in British English using our AI voice generator.

Download your audio files as MP3 or WAV, or access our British English AI voices through our state-of-the-art TTS API.

Excellent150+ reviews on Trustpilot
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Trusted by individuals and teams of all sizes

34 Text-to-Speech British English Accents

Take your audience on a journey across the British Isles with cutting-edge AI voices powered by PlayHT, Amazon Polly, Google WaveNet, IBM Watson, and Microsoft Azure.

English (UK)

34 voices
These are the most realistic and natural sounding voices, built using AI and Machine Learning.
Abbi
Alfie
Anna
Bella
Charlie
Charlotte
Elliot
Emilia
Ethan
Hannah
Harry
Hollie
Isla
James
Kathy
Libby
Lily
Logan
Maisie
Noah
Oliver
Olivia
Ryan
Sonia
Thomas

High quality voices that don’t sound robotic, built using computer generated algorithms without AI.

Amelia
Amy
Brian
Emma
Isabella
Jack
Mia
Sandy
Thomas

Explore Additional English TTS Voices

How it works

How to Generate Speech with British English Text-to-Speech Voices

  • Go to the PlayHT Studio
  • Choose your voice
  • Type your text or paste your script into the TTS Editor
  • Customize the voice by adjusting the speech or pitch. Include any pauses or emphasis, if necessary
  • Click generate audio
  • Preview your generation or regenerate audio and choose your preferred generation
  • Download your audio

British English Text-to-Speech Use Cases

Curate an immersive auditory experience for your audience with PlayHT’s British English accent generator. Narrate your audiobooks, voice your e-learning modules, and get creative with your documentary voiceovers.

  • Accent Training

    Have you ever wanted to speak with a British accent? You can use our AI voices as part of your accent training. Convert your text to speech with one of our British English AI voices and use the audio as a training guide to perfect your accent.

    Create stable, reliable accent drills and exercises using any British English AI voice of your choice. Record your voice and compare your audio with audio generated by PlayHT.

    Voice
  • Documentary Voiceovers

    Inspired by David Attenborough’s clear, authoritative, yet precise documentary voiceovers? Choose one of our Ultra-realistic narrative-style British English AI voices for your documentary voiceovers. Import your video to the PlayHT studio and add the voiceover directly to your video.

    Voice
  • E-learning

    The clarity and richness of British accents make British accents the perfect choice for e-learning audio content. Whether it’s educational tutorials or corporate training modules, the crisp British English accent is a great choice for your learning materials.

    Voice
  • Language Learning

    Perfect your language skills with authentic British text-to-speech voices. Master English pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm with our ultra-realistic British text-to-speech voices. Build a dialogue simulation with multiple British accents to enhance conversational fluency.

    Voice
  • IVR Systems

    Impress callers with clear, natural sounding voice prompts with our ultra-realistic British text-to-speech voices. Whether your call center is based in the United Kingdom or you’re addressing an English speaking market, a clear, articulate voice is a must.

    Voice

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Frequently Asked Questions

How many British English accents can I generate?

What is the most realistic British English accent generator?

How do I download my British English accent files?

What other accents can I generate?

How will educational institutions benefit from developing AI voice audio content for languages learners?

Enhance language comprehension
Enhance pronunciation abilities

Meta AI has engineered a speech translator to bridge gaps for languages that are primarily spoken, further demonstrating the technology’s accessibility and global potential.

Title:

Content: Did you miss a session from MetaBeat 2022? Head over to the on-demand library for all of our featured sessions here.

Artificial speech translation is a rapidly emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Initially created to aid communication among people who speak different languages, this speech-to-speech translation technology (S2ST) has found its way into several domains.  For example, global tech conglomerates are now using S2ST for directly translating shared documents and audio conversations in the metaverse.

At Cloud Next ’22 last week, Google announced its own speech-to-speech AI translation model, “Translation Hub,” using cloud translation APIs and AutoML translation. Now, Meta isn’t far behind.

Meta AI today announced the launch of the universal speech translator (UST) project, which aims to create AI systems that enable real-time speech-to-speech translation across all languages, even those that are spoken but not commonly written.

“Meta AI built the first speech translator that works for languages that are primarily spoken rather than written. We’re open-sourcing this so people can use it for more languages,” said Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder and CEO of Meta.

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According to Meta, the model is the first AI-powered speech translation system for the unwritten language Hokkien, a Chinese language spoken in southeastern China and Taiwan and by many in the Chinese diaspora around the world. The system allows Hokkien speakers to hold conversations with English speakers, a significant step toward breaking down the global language barrier and bringing people together wherever they are located — even in the metaverse.

This is a difficult task since, unlike Mandarin, English, and Spanish, which are both written and oral, Hokkien is predominantly verbal.

How AI can tackle speech-to-speech translation

Meta says that today’s AI translation models are focused on widely-spoken written languages, and that more than 40% of primarily oral languages are not covered by such translation technologies. The UST project builds upon the progress Zuckerberg shared during the company’s AI Inside the Lab event held back in February, about Meta AI’s universal speech-to-speech translation research for languages that are uncommon online. That event focused on using such immersive AI technologies for building the metaverse.

To build UST, Meta AI focused on overcoming three critical translation system challenges. It addressed data scarcity by acquiring more training data in more languages and finding new ways to leverage the data already available. It addressed the modeling challenges that arise as models grow to serve many more languages. And it sought new ways to evaluate and improve on its results.

Meta AI’s research team worked on Hokkien as a case study for an end-to-end solution, from training data collection and modeling choices to benchmarking datasets. The team focused on creating human-annotated data, automatically mining data from large unlabeled speech datasets, and adopting pseudo-labeling to produce weakly supervised data.

“Our team first translated English or Hokkien speech to Mandarin text, and then translated it to Hokkien or English,” said Juan Pino, researcher at Meta. “They then added the paired sentences to the data used to train the AI model.”

For the modeling, Meta AI applied recent advances in using self-supervised discrete representations as targets for prediction in speech-to-speech translation, and demonstrated the effectiveness of leveraging additional text supervision from Mandarin, a language similar to Hokkien, in model training. Meta AI says it will also release a speech-to-speech translation benchmark set to facilitate future research in this field.

William Falcon, AI researcher and CEO/cofounder of Lightning AI, said that artificial speech translation could play a significant role in the metaverse as it helps stimulate interactions and content creation.

“For interactions, it will enable people from around the world to communicate with each other more fluidly, making the social graph more interconnected. In addition, using artificial speech translation for content allows you to easily localize content for consumption in multiple languages,” Falcon told VentureBeat.

Falcon believes that a confluence of factors, such as the pandemic having massively increased the amount of remote work, as well as reliance on remote working tools, have led to growth in this area. These tools can benefit significantly from speech translation capabilities.

“Soon, we can look forward to hosting podcasts, Reddit AMA, or Clubhouse-like experiences within the metaverse. Enabling those to be multicast in multiple languages expands the potential audience on a massive scale,” he said.

How Meta’s universal speech translator (UST) works

The model uses S2UT to convert input speech to a sequence of acoustic units directly in the path, an implementation Meta previously pioneered. The generated output consists of waveforms from the input units. In addition, Meta AI adopted UnitY for a two-pass decoding mechanism where the first-pass decoder generates text in a related language (Mandarin), and the second-pass decoder creates units.

To enable automatic evaluation for Hokkien, Meta AI developed a system that transcribes Hokkien speech into a standardized phonetic notation called “Tâi-lô.” This allowed the data science team to compute BLEU scores (a standard machine translation metric) at the syllable level and quickly compare the translation quality of different approaches.

In addition to developing a method for evaluating Hokkien-English speech translations, the team created the first Hokkien-English bidirectional speech-to-speech translation benchmark dataset, based on a Hokkien speech corpus called Taiwanese Across Taiwan.

Meta AI claims that the techniques it pioneered with Hokkien can be extended to many other unwritten languages — and eventually work in real time. For this purpose, Meta is releasing the Speech Matrix, a large corpus of speech-to-speech translations mined with Meta’s innovative data mining technique called LASER. This will enable other research teams to create their own S2ST systems.

LASER converts sentences of various languages into a single multimodal and multilingual representation. The model uses a large-scale multilingual similarity search to identify similar sentences in the semantic space, i.e., ones that are likely to have the same meaning in different languages.

The mined data from the Speech Matrix provides 418,000-hour parallel speech to train the translation model, covering 272 language directions. So far, more than 8,000 hours of Hokkien speech have been mined together with the corresponding English translations.

A future of opportunities and challenges in speech translation

Meta AI’s current focus is developing a speech-to-speech translation system that does not rely on generating an intermediate textual representation during inference. This approach has been demonstrated to be faster than a traditional cascaded system that combines separate speech recognition, machine translation and speech synthesis models.

Yashar Behzadi, CEO and founder of Synthesis AI, believes that technology needs to enable more immersive and natural experiences if the metaverse is to succeed.

He said that one of the current challenges for UST models is the computationally expensive training that’s needed because of the breadth, complexity and nuance of languages.

“To train robust AI models requires vast amounts of representative data. A significant bottleneck to building these AI models in the near future will be the privacy-compliant collection, curation and labeling of training data,” he said. “The inability to capture sufficiently diverse data may lead to bias, differentially impacting groups of people. Emerging synthetic voice and NLP technologies may play an important role in enabling more capable models.”

According to Meta, with improved efficiency and simpler architectures, direct speech-to-speech could unlock near-human-quality real-time translation for future devices like AR glasses. In addition, the company’s recent advances in unsupervised speech recognition (wav2vec-U) and unsupervised machine translation (mBART) will aid the future work of translating more spoken languages within the metaverse.

With such progress in unsupervised learning, Meta aims to break down language barriers both in the real world and in the metaverse for all languages, whether written or unwritten.

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Media companies are now producing AI-dubbed documentaries, showing how AI can expand international communication.

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China Media Group Debuts AI-dubbed English Documentary, Pioneering Global Communication

China Media Group launches its first AI-dubbed English documentary, enhancing global reach and fostering international understanding through advanced AI technology.

Aqsa Younas Rana
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In a groundbreaking move, China Media Group has launched its first AI-dubbed English documentary, marking a significant milestone in the use of artificial intelligence for global media outreach. This innovative approach to dubbing not only showcases the advancements in AI technology but also underscores China's ambitions to foster better international communication and understanding. Through this initiative, the documentary, originally produced in Mandarin, has been made accessible to a broader English-speaking audience, enhancing its global reach and impact.

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Revolutionizing Content Accessibility

The application of AI in dubbing the documentary into English reflects a growing trend in leveraging technology to bridge language barriers. Similar to the educational advancements discussed in 'Voice Cloning in Education: Bridging Language Gaps in Learning Environments,' this initiative by China Media Group capitalizes on the potential of AI voice cloning technology. By generating lifelike digital replicas of human voices, the documentary's AI-dubbed version maintains the authenticity of the original narration while making it understandable for English-speaking viewers. This technological leap not only improves accessibility but also ensures the delivery of content with emotional depth and cultural nuances intact.

The launch of this AI-dubbed documentary serves as a testament to China's commitment to enhancing global dialogue and cultural exchange. By removing language barriers, China Media Group is effectively broadening the documentary's audience, enabling people from different parts of the world to gain insights into Chinese culture, history, and perspectives. This initiative aligns with the broader objective of promoting mutual understanding and respect among diverse global communities, paving the way for more inclusive and informed international discourse.

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Setting New Standards in Media Production

China Media Group's pioneering use of AI technology in documentary dubbing sets new standards for media production and distribution. It illustrates the potential of AI to transform traditional media practices, making content more accessible and engaging for global audiences. As AI technology continues to evolve, it is likely to open up further possibilities for creating multilingual content, thereby enhancing the reach and impact of media across borders. This development also raises important considerations regarding the ethical use of voice cloning technology, underscoring the need for guidelines that ensure its responsible application in media and beyond.

As we reflect on the implications of this technological advancement, it becomes clear that AI-dubbed media content holds significant promise for fostering international understanding and cooperation. By making diverse cultural and educational materials available in multiple languages, we can build a more connected and informed world. The initiative by China Media Group not only highlights the practical applications of AI in media but also invites us to contemplate the future of global communication in an increasingly digital age.

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On the negative side, law enforcement warns that AI voice cloning can be abused for fraud, such as extorting money by imitating loved ones.

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Content: OpenAI's Johansson gaffe pushes voice cloning into spotlight

Law enforcement warned that AI clones could be used to extort money from loved ones over the phone

By AFP

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Scarlett Johansson voiced an AI character in the film "Her". — Reuters file

Published: Mon 27 May 2024, 7:51 PM

Last updated: Mon 27 May 2024, 7:52 PM

OpenAI was forced to apologise to actor Scarlett Johansson last week for using her voice -- or something very similar -- on its latest chatbot, throwing the spotlight on to voice-cloning tech.

Although OpenAI denied the voice they used was Johansson's, their case was not helped by CEO Sam Altman flagging the new model with a one-word message on social media -- "Her".

Johansson voiced an AI character in the film "Her", which Altman has previously said is his favourite film about the technology.

Right from the start, AI voice cloning has proved problematic.

Last year, British firm Elevenlabs went viral for all the wrong reasons when it released its voice-cloning software.

Internet pranksters immediately began pushing out deepfaked celebrities -- Harry Potter star Emma Watson was shown reading Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Law enforcement warned that AI clones could be used to extort money from loved ones over the phone.

The technology has developed rapidly in the past year becoming far more realistic and nuanced.

Danish entrepreneur Victor Riparbelli, CEO of British AI firm Synthesia, told AFP it was largely down to a program called Tortoise that was released two years ago.

The program's developers threw thousands of hours of voice data into their model in an unstructured way and discovered it not only learnt what to say but how to say it.

"That was a pretty big paradigm shift," Riparbelli said on the sidelines of last week's VivaTech conference in Paris.

Tortoise was an open source program and Elevenlabs was the first to go to market using it.

OpenAI uses similar systems though they do not release any details.

Much of the controversy around voice cloning has focused on concerns over people misusing the software.

But the claim against OpenAI is unusual because it is the company itself accused of playing fast and loose.

"It was very unfortunate that OpenAI did that -- really not very good," Katya Laine, CEO of TALKR.ai, told AFP at VivaTech.

"If they actually cloned her voice without her knowing then I think that's very very bad," said Riparbelli.

The two entrepreneurs are among hundreds harnessing AI voice programs for uses that they argue will make companies more efficient.

Laine's firm provides virtual voice assistants -- essentially AI customer service agents.

She said her firm's system could now resolve 25 to 30 percent of calls without any human involvement.

Synthesia specialises in video avatars, which Riparbelli said allowed any office worker to turn text or slides into a video performed by a realistic AI.

Both Riparbelli and Laine allow their clients to use their own avatars, off-the-shelf products or those supplied by the likes of OpenAI and Elevenlabs.

Riparbelli said Synthesia used actors whose likenesses and voices were licensed for two years with an option to renew after the initial period.

The problems arise if actors' voices are used without their consent.

The fiasco overshadowed a developer conference in Paris last week when OpenAI was showing off a suite of new tools.

In front of a big screen in an auditorium, Romain Huet, OpenAI's Head of Developer Experience, breezily chatted into his phone.

Seconds later, his short voice sample had been processed and could be heard commentating over a generated video -- in five languages.

The demonstration showed how quickly the field is moving, but the headlines had already been written.

The Washington Post asked in a newsletter "How dumb is OpenAI?", other commentators were suggesting wunderkind Altman was nothing more than a huckster.

Nonetheless, Riparbelli was open to OpenAI's argument that they had used another actor who just sounded liked Johansson.

"If it's not her but someone who sounds a lot like her... where do you draw that line," Riparbelli asked.

"If they're not allowed to use someone who sounds a lot like her, then it sets a very odd precedent."

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