PHA-Exchange> UN AND PARTNERS GEAR UP TO FIGHT NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES AFFECTING BILLIONS OF PEOPLE

[claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn]

 from Vern Weitzel <vern at coombs.anu.edu.au> -----

UN AND PARTNERS GEAR UP TO FIGHT NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES AFFECTING BILLIONS 
OF PEOPLE
New York, Oct 26 2006  4:00PM
The United Nations health agency today joined with 25 partner organizations to 
unveil a new strategy 
using low-cost or free drugs to fight some of the most neglected tropical 
diseases caused by worm 
infections that threaten the lives and health of billions of poor people in 
developing countries 
around the world.

“Preventive chemotherapy does not necessarily stop infection taking place but 
it can help to reduce 
transmission,” the Director of the UN World Health Organization 
(<"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr60/en/index.html">WHO) 
Department for the 
Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, Lorenzo Savioli, said. “The benefit 
of preventive 
chemotherapy is that it immediately improves health and prevents irreversible 
disease in adults.”

The approach contained in a newly published manual, Preventive Chemotherapy in 
Human Helminthiasis, 
focuses on using a set of low-cost or free drugs to simultaneously treat the 
four most common 
diseases caused by worms and afflicting over 1 billion people: river blindness 
(onchocerciasis), 
elephantiasis (lymphatic filariasis), schistosomiasis, and soil-transmitted 
helminthiasis. The cost: 
as low as 40 cents per person per year.

“In the same way as we protect people against a number of vaccine-preventable 
diseases throughout 
their lives, the regular and coordinated use of a few drugs can protect people 
against worm-induced 
disease, improving children’s performance at school and the economic 
productivity of adults,” Mr. 
Savioli said.

The new approach provides a critical first step in combining treatment for 
diseases which, although 
different, require common resources and delivery strategies for control or 
elimination. The second 
key component brings together for the first time dozens of agencies, non-
governmental organizations 
(NGOs), pharmaceutical companies and others into a coordinated assault on 
neglected diseases.

The diseases’ impact can be measured in the impaired growth and development 
of children, 
complications during pregnancies, underweight babies, significant and sometimes 
disabling 
disfigurements, blindness, social stigma, and reduced economic productivity and 
household incomes.

These effects can be dramatically reduced by using highly effective drugs of 
proven quality and 
excellent safety record – the majority donated free by companies or costing 
less than $0.40 per 
person per year, including the cost of the drugs and their delivery.

“We need to urgently work together to improve access to rapid-impact 
interventions and quality 
care,” WHO Acting Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases David 
Heymann said. “The need 
to do so is incontestable from all perspectives: moral, human rights, economic 
and global public 
good. The task is feasible and must be done.”

Soil-transmitted helminthiasis affects more than 2 billion people worldwide, 
producing a wide range 
of symptoms that include diarrhoea, general weakness affecting working and 
learning capacities, 
impaired physical growth and anaemia.

It is estimated that 1.2 billion people in 83 countries live in areas endemic 
for lymphatic 
filariasis and about 120 million people are affected by the disease, with 
chronic complications 
including elephantiasis of the limbs, and damage to the genital organs, kidneys 
and lymphatic system.

Schistosomiasis affects about 200 million people worldwide, with more than 650 
million living in 
endemic areas, and can cause bladder and ureteral complications, liver 
enlargement and bladder 
cancer in late-stages.

Onchocerciasis is endemic in 30 countries in Africa, 6 in the Americas, and in 
Yemen in the Arabian 
peninsula, with an estimated 100 million at risk of infection 37 million 
already infected with the 
disease which can cause rashes, subcutaneous nodules, intense itching, 
elephantiasis of the 
genitalia, and eye lesions that can lead to blindness.

The partners range from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United 
States Centers for 
Disease Control to leading pharmaceutical companies.


------------------------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through Netnam-HCMC ISP: http://www.hcmc.netnam.vn/