UK Government Publishes Landmark Report Centered on Quality of Life for Rheumatoid Arthritis Sufferers

The report, which was conducted by the National Audit Office, found the patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis were on average not being diagnosed quickly enough.  In the UK it is estimated that the total economic impact of the disease stands around £1.8bn (US$3.0bn).  The study went on to say that if just an additional 10% [...]

CDC Report: Obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10% of medical spending in the U.S.

According to data recently released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10 percent of all medical spending in the United States or an estimated $147 billion a year. U.S. obesity rates rose 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, driving an 89 percent increase in spending on treatments [...]

Ministers from Least-Developed Countries develop strategy to encourage local innovation and investment

Ministers and other senor government officials from least developed countries agreed to a strategy for using intellectual property to encourage local innovation and encourage foreign investment at a recent WIPO Forum.  The ministers also discussed the challenges facing LDCs in this area, in particular the difficulties for LDCs to obtain better access to technological information. [...]

Tiered Pricing Enables Health for All

PAHO must accept their share of the responsibility in ensuring health for all in the 21st century. Many Latin American countries are “rich” today compared to most African states and some of their sister “south” American nations. Middle income PAHO states cannot hold much of Africa or their own poorer member countries like Haiti hostage for the self-interests of their more powerful, richer rapidly developing countries.

UNDOC report on counterfeit medicines in Africa

Angie Drakulich blogged yesterday about a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which highlights that West Africa has “increasingly become the target of a range of counterfeit medications, including antibiotics, antiretroviral drugs and medicines to fight malaria and tuberculosis.” The high demand for these types of drugs in West Africa [...]

Incentives important to stimulate drug development – WHO

Pharmaceutical firms need incentives, including lucrative patents, to keep creating drugs and vaccines against emergent threats such as the H1N1 influenza pandemic, the World Health Organisation’s head said on Tuesday. “Progress in public health depends on innovation. Some of the greatest strides forward for health have followed the development and introduction of new medicines and [...]

PAHO’s vaccine system hampers African efforts

Efforts to make newer and more costly vaccines widely available to the poorest in Africa are being hampered by a long-standing system that makes vaccines affordable to middle-income Latin American countries, reports the Financial Times. The Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) revolving fund, which began in 1979, negotiates substantial discounts with manufacturers on prices in [...]

EU: Seizures of counterfeit imports double in 2008

The European Union said seizures of fake branded goods more than doubled last year from 2007.  Customs authorities seized some 178 million counterfeit goods last year, compared with 79 million a year earlier. Some 20 million of these items were potentially dangerous to health and safety, officials said, because fake toys, medicines and electronics don’t [...]

New drug being tested in Africa for river blindness

The World Health Organization reports that a clinical trial is being launched in three African countries of a drug that could eliminate onchocerciasis, or river blindness, one of the leading infectious causes of blindness across Africa. The drug, moxidectin, is being investigated for its potential to kill or sterilize the adult worms of Onchocerca volvulus, [...]

UN launches trial Mobile Health campaign in Uganda

The UN launched a ten-day initiative on July 1, 2009 intended to reach out to 10,000 people in Uganda through mobile phones to demonstrate the reach and potential use of mobile phones in health information and promotion. Mobile health, or mHealth, takes advantage of the broad adoption of mobile telephones to reach the public with [...]