Tuberculosis not philanthropy's burden, experts say
By, Michelle Nichols, Reuters, January 12, 2007
NEW YORK - Philanthropists cannot win the global fight against tuberculosis alone and a "quantum leap" in funding is needed from governments, particularly in Europe, disease experts said on Friday.
A global research framework must be built and public leadership bolstered in tackling the disease through better funding and incentives for drug companies, said experts at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) meeting in New York.
"Today we see about $200 million spent a year for research for new tuberculosis (TB) drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines, where there is at least a necessity for $900 million a year," Tido von Schoen-Angerer of MSF told a news conference.
Tuberculosis is an airborne illness, spread through coughing or sneezing, that gradually destroys the lungs and can kill by causing multiple organ failure or bleeding in the lungs. It infects about nine million people a year and kills around two million of those.
The disease can normally be cured with several months of treatment with antibiotics, but about 500,000 people a year were now developing TB drug resistance, Schoen-Angerer said.
He said there had been a "failure" in TB research with only seven drugs to fight the disease in clinical development, compared with 149 drugs for cardiovascular disease and one new HIV drug annually for the past 25 years.
"We have a pharmaceutical market worth $600 billion a year and there's a very clear issue," he said. "Research and development is patented and profit-driven and is not delivering to the patients that are dying."
"Philanthropic efforts alone will not be enough to solve this issue," he said.
Bill Gates, the world's wealthiest man, helped launch The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis a year ago and has pledged more than $900 million for the campaign to treat 50 million people and prevent 14 million TB deaths by 2015.
But the fund said that to fully implement the plan it would cost an estimated $56 billion over the next decade.
The incidence of tuberculosis in developed countries dropped throughout much of last century but re-emerged as a problem about 15 years ago. Kenneth Castro, director of tuberculosis elimination at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it "never stopped being a problem of comparable magnitude in most of the world."
Mark Harrington of the Treatment Action Group said TB had effectively become a forgotten disease.
"Governments need to step up to plate and take their primary responsibility," he said, noting that Africa had the worst rate of tuberculosis, but that Europe was second.
"The European leadership still doesn't recognize the extent of the problem (and) has not taken adequate steps," he said. "The U.S. government funds 47 percent of the world's TB research. India contributes more than any European country. So we feel Europe has a lot more to do."
NEW YORK - Philanthropists cannot win the global fight against tuberculosis alone and a "quantum leap" in funding is needed from governments, particularly in Europe, disease experts said on Friday.
A global research framework must be built and public leadership bolstered in tackling the disease through better funding and incentives for drug companies, said experts at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) meeting in New York.
"Today we see about $200 million spent a year for research for new tuberculosis (TB) drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines, where there is at least a necessity for $900 million a year," Tido von Schoen-Angerer of MSF told a news conference.
Tuberculosis is an airborne illness, spread through coughing or sneezing, that gradually destroys the lungs and can kill by causing multiple organ failure or bleeding in the lungs. It infects about nine million people a year and kills around two million of those.
The disease can normally be cured with several months of treatment with antibiotics, but about 500,000 people a year were now developing TB drug resistance, Schoen-Angerer said.
He said there had been a "failure" in TB research with only seven drugs to fight the disease in clinical development, compared with 149 drugs for cardiovascular disease and one new HIV drug annually for the past 25 years.
"We have a pharmaceutical market worth $600 billion a year and there's a very clear issue," he said. "Research and development is patented and profit-driven and is not delivering to the patients that are dying."
"Philanthropic efforts alone will not be enough to solve this issue," he said.
Bill Gates, the world's wealthiest man, helped launch The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis a year ago and has pledged more than $900 million for the campaign to treat 50 million people and prevent 14 million TB deaths by 2015.
But the fund said that to fully implement the plan it would cost an estimated $56 billion over the next decade.
The incidence of tuberculosis in developed countries dropped throughout much of last century but re-emerged as a problem about 15 years ago. Kenneth Castro, director of tuberculosis elimination at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it "never stopped being a problem of comparable magnitude in most of the world."
Mark Harrington of the Treatment Action Group said TB had effectively become a forgotten disease.
"Governments need to step up to plate and take their primary responsibility," he said, noting that Africa had the worst rate of tuberculosis, but that Europe was second.
"The European leadership still doesn't recognize the extent of the problem (and) has not taken adequate steps," he said. "The U.S. government funds 47 percent of the world's TB research. India contributes more than any European country. So we feel Europe has a lot more to do."
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 4:30 pm
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