Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - December 19, 2003
The agreement was the first such pact between the United Nations agency and the private sector to fight the disease, which kills some two million people a year and is spreading.
"We encourage other drugs manufacturers to follow their (Novartis') example. Massive investment in patient care from the pharmaceutical industry will have an enormous impact on reducing the TB death toll," said WHO director-general Lee Jong-wook.
Novartis, whose chairman Daniel Vasella had tuberculosis (TB) as a child, said the program would cost it around $7.0 million a year, with the medicines being manufactured by an India-based company.
Initial treatment will be through a single pill containing four different medicines, designed to make it easier to administer in poor countries and fight against resistance which can develop when patients do not take all the drugs needed.
Lee, who was flanked at a news conference by Richard Feachem, head of the Global Fund, the U.N.-backed foundation set up to channel financing for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, said that TB was one of the fastest spreading diseases in the world, with eight million new cases in 2003 alone.
The WHO, which aims to reduce the prevalence and the number of deaths from TB by 50 percent by 2010, said the drugs would be distributed in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as in the former Soviet bloc where the disease has surged.
TB is growing by some 10 percent a year in sub-Saharan Africa, which is also one of the regions hardest hit by AIDS.
Unlike AIDS, which contributes to the spread of TB by attacking the immune system, TB has been easily curable for over 50 years with the right drugs. Treatment takes around six months.
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