Uniting to combat neglected tropical diseases: public-private partnership

Today, 13 pharmaceutical companies, the U.S., U.K. and U.A.E governments, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and other global health organisations announced a new, coordinated push to accelerate progress toward eliminating or controlling 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by the end of the decade.

Uniting efforts with NTD-endemic countries, partners pledged to bring a unique focus to defeating these diseases and to work together to improve the lives of the 1.4 billion people worldwide affected by NTDs, most of whom are among the world’s poorest.

• Additional media and other resources
• Endorse the London Declaration on NTDs

International treaty signed to combat growing counterfeit drug industry

According to a report by The Moscow Times, many European leaders have recently agreed to cooperate in the fight against counterfeit medicines:

Convention to Combat Fake Medicine Signed

(Moscow Times)  Russia, France, Germany and several other mostly European countries on Friday signed the first-ever international treaty to combat the growing multibillion-dollar counterfeit drugs industry.

The Council of Europe-sponsored Medicrime Convention, signed in Moscow, obliges signatory states to criminalize a broad range of activities that make possible the sale of fake medicines that harm patients and deprive legal producers of revenues.  The convention introduces minimum standards for the criminal law of the signatory countries, said Council of Europe media officer Estelle Steiner.

Ambassadors and diplomats of Austria, Finland, Italy, Israel, Iceland, Portugal, Switzerland and Ukraine have signed the treaty. It establishes as criminal offenses such activities as the manufacturing of counterfeit medical products (including equipment), their supply and offers to supply, trafficking and the falsification of related documents.

Many fake drugs contain an insufficient amount of active ingredients, which could cause fatal consequences for the patient.

According to the World Health Organization, counterfeit medical products represent between 6 percent and 20 percent of the market in some parts of Europe.

 

The fight against TB: Bayer donates drugs to WHO program

According to a report from PharmaTimes, Bayer will donate 620,000 tablets of its antibiotic moxifloxacin in order to help tackle multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

The drugs will be provided to the World Health Organization for use in its Stop Tuberculosis Partnership, with the WHO expected to provide the antibiotics to China’s national tuberculosis programme.

WHO begins review of Essential Medicines List; releases list of priority medicines for children

Today marks the start of the 18th Meeting of the WHO Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines. At the weeklong meeting, held in Accra Ghana, the Committee will review 16 applications for the addition of a new medicine to the model list; 7 applications for the addition of a new formulation; and 9 applications for the deletion of a medicine from the list.

Access to appropriate medicines is vital to improving global public health and achieving targets set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). More than eight million children under the age of five still die every year from causes such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria. The majority of these deaths occur in developing countries and can be prevented when the right medicines are available and are prescribed and used correctly.

Read more. (Source:  World Health Advocacy)

Access barriers to medicines and health: Op-Ed

Canadian MP Keith Martin recently wrote an interesting Op-Ed for the Edmonton Journal on the challenges of providing access to medicines and health for the world’s poorest.  He notes that lack of infrastructure, access to trained health workers, potable water and sanitation are the real barriers to access to medicines and care — not patents.

98.6 per cent of ‘essential medicines’ are generic or are not patented in developing countries, but for those living on $2 a day even generic drugs are too expensive (when available).

Tinkering with patent laws won’t get medicine to world’s poorest

The debate around enabling the world’s poorest people to acquire life-saving medications is coming to a head. This week, Parliament votes on a bill that will modify Canada’s Access to Medications Regime (CAMR). If the bill becomes law, it will enable Canadian generic manufacturers to produce and sell medications that are currently under patent protection to developing countries. On the surface this makes sense. But are patents really the obstacle proponents of the bill claim to enabling the poor to access drugs for AIDS and other diseases?

Every year, the World Health Organization (WHO) convenes an independent panel of experts, chosen equally from developing and developed countries, to draw up a list of essential medicines. Currently, 319 drugs are on this list.

Of these, 98.6 per cent are generic or are not patented in developing countries. Thus, the life-saving medications the poor needs are already off patent. Generic manufacturers can make them today if they wish. Therefore, patents are not the problem.

GAVI welcomes a new global commitment to vaccines

A new partnership was announced today, injecting additional funding into the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation’s (GAVI) efforts to help save millions of children.  His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation entered into a partnership in which each committed US$ 50 million for immunisation programmes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

GAVI will receive US$ 66 million to buy and deliver additional supplies of the five-in-one pentavalent vaccine and to support the introduction of new pneumococcal vaccines in Afghanistan. These vaccines help protect children from the main killers of children under five, including pneumonia, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type B (HiB), which causes meningitis.

“Private donations like this send a clear signal to our government donors that they are not alone in seeing the value of immunisation,” said Dagfinn Høybråten, Chair of the GAVI Alliance board.

Backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and an increasing number of sovereign governments since its launch in 2000, the GAVI Alliance has succeeded in immunising more than 288 million children, preventing more than five million premature deaths, according to WHO figures.

If fully funded, the GAVI Alliance will be able to immunise an additional 230 million children with pentavalent vaccine by 2015, and protect 90 million children with new pneumococcal vaccines which are already being introduced in the first of more than 40 developing countries. GAVI also plans to introduce vaccines against rotavirus in 33 countries.

Joint venture aims to develop new rotavirus vaccine for poor

A joint venture between U.S. drugmaker Merck and Britain’s Wellcome Trust charity is working on an oral rotavirus vaccine designed to be cheaper and easier to use than current shots, as reported by Reuters.

The vaccine will aim to protect against diarrhoea-causing rotavirus infections and will be based on thin strips or granules that dissolve in the mouth and can be easily transported, stored and administered.  Currently available rotavirus shots, made by Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline, need to be kept in cold storage — making their transportation and delivery complex and costly.

Diarrhoea is one of the top two killers of children under five worldwide, and rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhoeal disease in children. Each year, rotavirus-related diarrhoea kills more than 500,000 children and is the cause of many millions more needing hospital treatment.

Vaccines are often the best hope for tackling many diseases in poor countries.

New malaria vaccine shows long-lasting protection

(From Reuters) An experimental malaria vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline provides African children with long-lasting protection, though its effectiveness declines slightly over time, according to recently published trial data.  Scientists conducting the mid-stage trial at the Kenya Medical Research Institute said results showing the shot offered 46 percent protection for 15 months meant it had “promise as a potential public health intervention against childhood malaria in malaria endemic countries.”

Malaria is an infectious disease spread by mosquitoes that threatens up to half the world’s population. Most of its victims are children under five in poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Late-stage trials of the GSK vaccine, known as RTS,S or Mosquirix, in 16,000 children in seven countries across Africa are ongoing, with immunizations due to end next month.  If data show the vaccine was effective, it could be licensed and rolled out as soon as 2015.

GSK chief executive Andrew Witty has said that if RTS,S proved effective in final-stage trials it would be sold at a price that those who need it most can afford. The company has said it was planning for a profit margin of 5 percent over the cost of making the vaccine, and that would be reinvested in new vaccines for malaria and other neglected diseases.

GAVI offers new opportunity to apply for life-saving vaccines

The GAVI Alliance has issued a new call for applications from developing countries keen to protect more of their children from disease with new vaccines.

Studies have shown that immunisation not only saves lives, but also boosts economies, acting as a key driver of development.3  Increasing immunisation rates is vital to meet the health Millennium Development Goals, particularly MDG 4 on reducing child mortality.

GAVI estimates that a fully-funded programme would prevent approximately 4 million future deaths by 2015, and enable the introduction of new vaccines including importantly those that tackle major causes of the world’s two biggest killers of children, pneumonia and diarrhoea.

To continue its mission to save lives and protect people’s health by increasing access to immunisation, GAVI needs to raise approximately US$3.7 billion more within the next five years.

Clot drug to help AF patients

Hundreds of thousands of heart patients would benefit from new type of blood thinning drug to cut their risk of stroke, say UK experts (BBC News).  Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), an erratic and sometimes fast heartbeat, can reduce their risk by a fifth when taking rivaroxaban rather than the most popular existing treatment, warfarin.

One in five people over the age of 70 is likely to be diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat, which can lead to blood clots and cause strokes.  AF affects around 800,000 UK people and is equally prevalent in Canada, United States and many other developed countries.

Access to these new therapies can often be a challenge for patients, however.  Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “The rate at which these new drugs are introduced into routine clinical practice will be determined by the extent to which regulators believe their benefits justify their additional cost.”

The data comes from a study of 14,000 patients and was presented at the American Heart Association conference.