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.

Mass vaccination campaign to protect millions of children in China from measles

According to the UN Daily News, nearly 100 million children across China will this month be vaccinated against measles in one of the world’s largest such public health exercise in an effort to bring the vast country closer to eliminating the contagious disease by 2012.

The vaccination campaign will kick off on 11 September and last until 20 September, WHO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a joint statement.

In 2009, more than 52,000 people in China were reported to have contracted measles, accounting for about 86 per cent of the measles cases in WHO’s Western Pacific region.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that affects both children and young adults. While most individuals recover from measles infection, some may suffer serious complications such as blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhoea, pneumonia and ear infections.

Measles is a leading cause of avoidable death and disability among children in developing countries. Globally, an estimated 164,000 people died from measles in 2008 – mostly children under the age of five.

Experience from other countries shows that well-conducted campaigns can ensure that every child, especially those not reached through the routine immunization programme, receives a measles vaccine.

The measles vaccine is a safe and highly effective, but some children may get fever or mild reactions in the days following vaccination. This means that the vaccine is working to protect the child. A child who has previously received measles vaccination can still be given an additional dose of measles vaccine.

Access to new test for drug-resistant TB must be improved: WHO expert

A World Health Organization expert called for greater access to a new diagnostic tool for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in the Western Pacific and southeast Asia.  The new diagnostic tool reduces the time needed to detect MDR-TB from eight weeks to two hours.

Drug-resistant TB emerges when patients fail to follow treatment regimens, take substandard drugs or stop treatment too early.  Patients with MDR-TB can then transmit the disease to others.

According to the WHO, there are 120,000 new cases of MDR-TB in the Western Pacific each year, which makes up 28 percent of the global caseload.  Combined with cases in southeast Asia, all MDR-TB cases in Asia make up 58 percent of the global caseload.

Number of drug-resistant TB cases, 2007

• India – 131,000
• China – 112,000
• Russia – 43,000
• Bangladesh – 15,000
• South Africa – 16,000

TB killed 1.8 million people across the world in 2008, or a person every 20 seconds. It is not only a scourge in poor countries but also in the West, where it has flared anew in the last 20 years because of AIDS, which weakens the immune system.

WHO report: drug resistant TB at record levels

Drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is now at record levels with Asia bearing the brunt of the epidemic, says the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) in a recent report.

In some parts of the world, one in four people with TB becomes ill with a form of the disease that can no longer be treated with standard drugs, according to WHO’s Multidrug and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis: 2010 Global Report on Surveillance and Response.

Nearly one-third of the 440,000 people with multidrug-resistant form of the disease (MDR-TB) in 2008 died, the report stated.

Almost half of the MDR-TB cases occurred in China, where the first nationwide drug resistance survey was conducted, and India. In Africa, estimates show 69,000 cases emerged, the vast majority of which went undiagnosed.

Even in the presence of severe epidemics, governments and partners can turn around MDR-TB by strengthening efforts to control the disease and implementing WHO recommendations, the report noted.

Fake Chinese drugs marketed with ‘Made in India’ tag

An interesting article from the Financial Express, based in India, on counterfeit medicines and how they are being marketed.

Barely four months after China-made fake drugs with deceptive ‘Made in India’ labels were seized in Nigeria, more cases of spurious drugs are surfacing in the Indian market with alleged links to China.

Recently, seized samples of human immunoglobin injection used in the case of multiple sclerosis, bone marrow transplantation, chronic B-cell lymphocytic leukemia, pediatric HIV-1 infection among others, which were declared spurious by the drug regulator office in Rajasthan were allegedly manufactured by a Chinese company.

Earlier in June this year, the Nigerian drug regulator seized large consignments of fake anti-malarial generic pharmaceuticals labelled `Made in India’, which were later, found to be produced in China.

Japan, China Start Group on Intellectual Property Rights

Bloomberg reported that Economic ministers from Japan and China will start a working group on protecting intellectual property rights as part of an effort to tighten economic ties during the global recession.

Asia’s two largest economies agreed to set up a working group to discuss intellectual property, implement economic measures pledged at the Group of 20 meeting in April and cooperate on development in Africa and other poorer regions.

China to strengthen protection of intellectual property rights

Protection of intellectual property rights is necessary not only for economic development and country-to-country exchanges, but is also a matter of respecting the value of people’s work, stated Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Wen was speaking yesterday in a meeting with Francis Gurry, director-general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  Premier Wen also said his government would increase efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR).  The Chinese government will continue to implement their IPR strategy to promote scientific innovation, economic growth, cultural prosperity and social progress, he said.

Gurry spoke highly of China’s big progress in IPR protection and said the WIPO would work with China to contribute to the global IPR protection efforts.

Read more in an article from the Xinhua News Agency.

China warns of more health scares amid slowdown

According to a recent Reuters report, the global economic slowdown could have serious health and safety implications.

BEIJING, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Chinese food and drug makers struggling in a declining economy could be tempted to cut corners and ignore quality standards, a senior Chinese official warned as the country awaits court verdicts in a tainted milk scandal.

China has been rocked by a number of scandals in recent years involving unsafe food and drugs which have sometimes killed people and prompted global recalls of Chinese-made goods.

At least six children last year died from drinking milk formula adulterated with melamine, an industrial compound used to cheat nutrition tests, and more than 290,000 fell ill with kidney stones. China has put on trial a number of company officials and farmers accused of producing and selling the toxic milk.

Shao Mingli, a senior official from China’s food and drug safety watchdog, said that the country was on “high alert” as the impact of the financial crisis began to hit home, Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying late on Tuesday.

“Some enterprises might conduct production in violation of standards and regulations in an attempt to ease their financial burdens,” Shao said.

“On the other hand, conflicts and disputes arising from some companies’ regrouping or merger and acquisition might impact production and quality management,” the official added, calling for tighter supervision of all levels of the supply chain.

The watchdog had dealt with 297,500 cases of “illegal drugs and medical equipment” with a value of about 600 million yuan ($88 million) last year, Xinhua said, in an indication of the seriousness of the problem.

The report comes amid an investigation into a health scare involving a foreign brand of dog food, which local media have linked to the deaths of dozens of pets.

The China Daily on Tuesday said that at least 30 dogs had died from liver complications after eating a brand of dog food which the state newspaper said was tainted with aflatoxin.

The paper quoted vets who said a number of dogs had been diagnosed with liver damage after eating the pet food, and a local supplier that had stopped selling it.

But China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said it had neither approved the food for import, nor had border quarantine units ever allowed its import, Xinhua said, casting doubt over the product’s origins.

In 2007, pet food made with Chinese ingredients tainted with melamine killed a number of dogs and cats in the United States.

China looks to strengthen intellectual property rights

New intellectual property plan to boost Chinese patents
Hepeng Jia
24 June 2008

[BEIJING] China has launched a national intellectual property rights (IPR) strategy to encourage innovation and strengthen its legal framework in the field.

The National IPR strategy outline, published earlier this month (5 June) by China’s State Council, aims to turn China into “a nation with an internationally leading level of creating, using, protecting and managing IPR by 2020″.

The strategy aims to boost the number of patents held by Chinese citizens over the next five years.

It also seeks to establish an effective legal protection system for genetic resources and indigenous knowledge.

Although China is one of the world’s top three nations in terms of patents issued (see China hits top three in patent applications), most of its patents for invention are owned by foreign companies operating in the country. According to China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), 53 per cent of the 67,948 invention patents issued in 2007 were filed by foreign individuals or companies.

The strategy will see China’s government revise laws on patent, trademarks and copyrights. The website of SIPO quoted its head, Tian Lipu, as saying that the new patent law will be submitted to the legislature for approval before the end of the year.

Previous Chinese patent law focused on the protection of the patent, but this revised law will also outline how a patent can be used and benefits shared, as well as how to avoid patent abuses.

The strategy will also seek to increase the ability of government departments and courts to help protect IPR.

Sun Pingping, a spokesperson for SIPO, told SciDev.Net that although there are many existing laws and regulations on IPR, the national strategy can coordinate their functions by guiding their revisions, refining and updating when necessary.

Sun Guorui, an intellectual property law professor at Beihang University in Beijing, says that the main significance of the strategy is it makes IPR creation and use a core value for policymaking.

“For example, in the science community, awards or promotion are given mainly as the result of publishing high-impact papers. But in the future, the number of patents filed can be an important indicator of scientists’ output,” Sun told SciDev.Net.

He adds that the strategy will need to be followed by more concrete action implemented by different government departments. For example, the health ministry will have to finalise its measures on how to protect the patents of traditional Chinese medicine.