

MSF and others sent this open letter to the pharmaceutical companies Gilead Sciences and Viatris expressing grave concern regarding the lack of adequate supply and affordable access to liposomal amphotericin B (L-AmB) to treat mucormycosis (“black fungus”). This life-threatening fungal infection has compounded the crisis of COVID-19 in India and Nepal. The rapidly increasing need for L-AmB to treat mucormycosis as a devastating complication of COVID-19 comes against a larger backdrop of the persistent unaffordable pricing of this crucial antifungal drug, including in the private market; lack of access to the offered access price for cryptococcal meningitis; and difficulty accessing a predictable and affordable supply for the neglected tropical disease visceral leishmaniasis, as well as several other systemic fungal infections such as talaromycosis.