Posts tagged global health

The drug company Novartis is taking India to court to stop production of affordable generic medicines that millions of people depend on to stay alive.

Last week, we joined other activists to protest the lawsuit at the company’s headquarters in NYC.

Reblog to join the protest!

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011 8. Stuck in The Middle: Drug Companies Push Up Prices for Patients in Middle-Income Countries People living with HIV in middle-income countries like India, Brazil or Thailand are facing huge hikes in the costs of AIDS medicines—at a time when the pharmaceutical industry sees these countries as potentially lucrative markets for high-priced drugs, and “blockbuster” drugs go off-patent in wealthy countries. This year, a number of drug companies confirmed an ongoing trend by refusing to extend standardized price discounts to middle-income countries—something which was previously routine practice. ViiV, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott all now specifically exclude middle-income countries from standardized price discounts for some or all of their drugs. Countries are thus forced to negotiate on a case-by-case basis, which is likely to lead to higher prices. This move ignores the fact that the majority of people in middle-income countries can’t afford to pay high prices for medicines. To add to the problem, these countries are now losing the support from global health mechanisms like the Global Fund. Photo: India 2009 © Sami Siva

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011

8. Stuck in The Middle: Drug Companies Push Up Prices for Patients in Middle-Income Countries

People living with HIV in middle-income countries like India, Brazil or Thailand are facing huge hikes in the costs of AIDS medicines—at a time when the pharmaceutical industry sees these countries as potentially lucrative markets for high-priced drugs, and “blockbuster” drugs go off-patent in wealthy countries.

This year, a number of drug companies confirmed an ongoing trend by refusing to extend standardized price discounts to middle-income countries—something which was previously routine practice. ViiV, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott all now specifically exclude middle-income countries from standardized price discounts for some or all of their drugs. Countries are thus forced to negotiate on a case-by-case basis, which is likely to lead to higher prices.

This move ignores the fact that the majority of people in middle-income countries can’t afford to pay high prices for medicines. To add to the problem, these countries are now losing the support from global health mechanisms like the Global Fund.

Photo: India 2009 © Sami Siva

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011 3. Progress in the Fight Against HIV, TB, and Malaria Under Threat as Health Funding Falters Donor support to fight diseases that hit the poor hardest has been waning for a while, but the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in November that it was cancelling its annual funding round because donors had not paid up was nonetheless a shock. Countries will now have to wait until 2014—at the earliest—before they can receive new funds to put more people on treatment for HIV or drug-resistant TB, or roll out diagnostic tests for malaria, for example. The Fund has put a stop-gap solution in place that can prevent treatment interruptions in the meantime, but it’s one that leaves countries hanging on the thinnest of lifelines. Photo: South Africa 2011 © Samantha Reinders

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011

3. Progress in the Fight Against HIV, TB, and Malaria Under Threat as Health Funding Falters

Donor support to fight diseases that hit the poor hardest has been waning for a while, but the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in November that it was cancelling its annual funding round because donors had not paid up was nonetheless a shock.

Countries will now have to wait until 2014—at the earliest—before they can receive new funds to put more people on treatment for HIV or drug-resistant TB, or roll out diagnostic tests for malaria, for example. The Fund has put a stop-gap solution in place that can prevent treatment interruptions in the meantime, but it’s one that leaves countries hanging on the thinnest of lifelines.

Photo: South Africa 2011 © Samantha Reinders

2011 marks the ten-year anniversary of two events that have helped shape people’s ability in developing countries to access quality, affordable medical care. First, the signing of the Doha Declaration, in which governments affirmed the need to prioritize health over trade: access to affordable medicines over intellectual property rights. Second, is the decision to create a “war chest” to fight the developing world’s biggest killer diseases: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Through the Global Fund, unprecedented levels of donor money were channeled towards saving lives. But a decade later, the struggle to access medicines in developing countries continues and global health is suffering from a sudden shortfall in funding, as donor countries leave the Fund in dire financial straights. These are some of the barriers to medical care that people in developing countries encounter every day. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières’s (MSF) Access Campaign was created just over ten years ago in order to try, with others, to bring down some of these barriers that restricted our ability as a medical humanitarian organization to give patients the best care we can. Read the Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011 Photo: Kenya 2011 © Bruno De Cock/MSF

2011 marks the ten-year anniversary of two events that have helped shape people’s ability in developing countries to access quality, affordable medical care.

First, the signing of the Doha Declaration, in which governments affirmed the need to prioritize health over trade: access to affordable medicines over intellectual property rights. Second, is the decision to create a “war chest” to fight the developing world’s biggest killer diseases: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Through the Global Fund, unprecedented levels of donor money were channeled towards saving lives. But a decade later, the struggle to access medicines in developing countries continues and global health is suffering from a sudden shortfall in funding, as donor countries leave the Fund in dire financial straights.

These are some of the barriers to medical care that people in developing countries encounter every day. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières’s (MSF) Access Campaign was created just over ten years ago in order to try, with others, to bring down some of these barriers that restricted our ability as a medical humanitarian organization to give patients the best care we can. Read the Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011

Photo: Kenya 2011 © Bruno De Cock/MSF

In my work with MSF, I have seen people die from AIDS, from TB, and from malaria. But in recent years, I have most of all seen people survive these diseases. The Global Fund is a crucial part of the most ambitious health project in history, and millions of people alive today are testimony to its success. We simply can’t afford to squander the opportunity we have now to deal these diseases a final blow.
Unni Karunakara, international president of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), in his call for a Global Fund conference to commit to funding the fight against HIV, TB, and malaria
The United States has helped to save millions of lives through the support of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. But right now, Congress is holding meetings on cuts to the White House’s 2012 budget request for global health funding. Their decisions could jeopardize the lives of millions of people who need access to treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Please join our call to save millions of lives by asking Congress to fully fund PEPFAR and the Global Fund by sending a letter to your members of Congress today. Photo: Kenya 2005 © Brendan Bannon

The United States has helped to save millions of lives through the support of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

But right now, Congress is holding meetings on cuts to the White House’s 2012 budget request for global health funding. Their decisions could jeopardize the lives of millions of people who need access to treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

Please join our call to save millions of lives by asking Congress to fully fund PEPFAR and the Global Fund by sending a letter to your members of Congress today.

Photo: Kenya 2005 © Brendan Bannon

Not only is [treatment] the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do.
Sharonann Lynch, MSF HIV policy adviser, in Nature on the importance of continuing funding HIV/AIDS research and treatment
The US government has long played a leading role in the fight against many of the major global health threats, and medical and operational innovations hold the promise of saving a great many more patients with sustained and increased financial support. Turning back now could cost millions of lives.
Matthew Spitzer, President of the US section of MSF, in The Huffington Post on the real costs of the US government cutting funding for global health programs that account for less than 1 percent of the overall federal budget
According to American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR), for every 5 percent reduction in U.S. funding of global health programs, 182,000 people with HIV/AIDS and 2.1 million malaria patients will be left untreated; and millions of children will go without immunization against resurgent diseases like measles that can leave children with pneumonia, blindness, or death. Put another way: A 5 percent cut in US funding for global health is akin to shutting the doors of every MSF hospital and clinic in over 70 countries for an entire year.
Matthew Spitzer, President of the US section of MSF, in The Huffington Post on the real costs of the U.S. government cutting funding for global health programs that account for less than 1 percent of the overall federal budget.

What it costs to fight acute childhood malnutrition

• US$ 35 will buy 150 sachets of ready-to-use supplementary food used in nutritional programmes to prevent malnutrition.

• It’s estimated just over $6 billion a year will cover the costs of supplying enough therapeutic and supplemental ready-to-use foods to fight acute childhood malnutrition worldwide.

Each year, Natacha, a single mother in Burkina Faso, struggles to get her children safely through the precarious time between harvests when food is scarce and young children are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition. Malnutrition contributes to the death of well over 2.5 million children under the age of five each year. Ready-to-use foods have been used for some time to save the lives of dangerously malnourished children. Now we know that providing children who are at risk with supplemental foods, that meet their nutritional needs, will spare them from irreversible consequences on their growth and development and prevent them from falling into the life-threatening severe form of malnutrition. Alexi was malnourished before reaching his first birthday. He lives with his mother Natacha and his two siblings in a small village in northern Burkina Faso. Natacha grows millet for the family. But the grain she harvests lasts them only four months and they go hungry the rest of the year. The markets are full, but she cannot afford to buy the food she wants. “Eating millet porridge every day is the equivalent of living off bread and water,” MSF nutrition advisor Susan Shepherd said. Natacha was given a supply of packets of peanut paste containing milk powder, sugar and oil, and enriched with vitamins and essential nutrients as treatment. This ready to-use food needs no refrigeration or preparation, and can be fed to children by their parents at home. Alexi responded well to the treatment: he gained weight steadily, and after just a few weeks was out of danger. Ready-to-use therapeutic foods were developed to treat children already at a dangerous stage of malnutrition. But if his mother, Natacha, had been able to get hold of what are called supplemental foods, that contain sufficient nutrients for a growing child, then Alexi might never have fallen ill through acute malnutrition in the first place. His life and many other children that live in similar contexts of humanitarian crises could be protected this way. But today, the lack of funds means the foods needed to address malnutrition are all too often rationed to the severest cases. “5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world. Photo: © Jessica Dimmock/VII Network, Burkina Faso

Each year, Natacha, a single mother in Burkina Faso, struggles to get her children safely through the precarious time between harvests when food is scarce and young children are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition.

Malnutrition contributes to the death of well over 2.5 million children under the age of five each year. Ready-to-use foods have been used for some time to save the lives of dangerously malnourished children. Now we know that providing children who are at risk with supplemental foods, that meet their nutritional needs, will spare them from irreversible consequences on their growth and development and prevent them from falling into the life-threatening severe form of malnutrition.

Alexi was malnourished before reaching his first birthday. He lives with his mother Natacha and his two siblings in a small village in northern Burkina Faso. Natacha grows millet for the family. But the grain she harvests lasts them only four months and they go hungry the rest of the year. The markets are full, but she cannot afford to buy the food she wants.

“Eating millet porridge every day is the equivalent of living off bread and water,” MSF nutrition advisor Susan Shepherd said.

Natacha was given a supply of packets of peanut paste containing milk powder, sugar and oil, and enriched with vitamins and essential nutrients as treatment. This ready to-use food needs no refrigeration or preparation, and can be fed to children by their parents at home. Alexi responded well to the treatment: he gained weight steadily, and after just a few weeks was out of danger.

Ready-to-use therapeutic foods were developed to treat children already at a dangerous stage of malnutrition. But if his mother, Natacha, had been able to get hold of what are called supplemental foods, that contain sufficient nutrients for a growing child, then Alexi might never have fallen ill through acute malnutrition in the first place. His life and many other children that live in similar contexts of humanitarian crises could be protected this way. But today, the lack of funds means the foods needed to address malnutrition are all too often rationed to the severest cases.

“5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world.

Photo: © Jessica Dimmock/VII Network, Burkina Faso

What it costs to prevent measles epidemics

• It costs less than US$1 for the vaccine to protect one child from measles for life.

• It will cost $212 million to reach the Measles Initiative’s target of reducing measles deaths by 95% by 2015.

• The funding shortfall: There is a present funding shortfall of $43.4 million to reach this target.

“5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world.

Earlier this year, Dr. Northan Hortado and his colleagues, faced with an exploding measles epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, took part in a massive emergency response program and vaccinated three million children. Lack of support for basic immunization programs means that MSF teams are seeing more and more measles outbreaks that are unnecessarily claiming children’s lives. Great strides have been made to rid the world of measles - one of the biggest childhood killers that used to claim over two and a half million children’s lives a year. Following the launch of a global initiative in 2001, the numbers of children dying of measles-related conditions dropped by 78 percent. But recently, donors have cut back on funding measles immunization efforts. This trend now threatens to reverse the tremendous gains made. “The problem is that the fight against measles is no longer seen as a political priority – not within ministries of health and not by donors, who are reducing funding,” said Gwenola François, measles vaccination campaign manager in the DRC. “It costs just one dollar for the vaccine to protect a child against measles for life. Organizations like MSF cannot just continue to rush in to put out the fires caused by these…long term deficiencies of measles prevention programs.” “5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world. Photo: © Gwenn Dubourthoumieu

Earlier this year, Dr. Northan Hortado and his colleagues, faced with an exploding measles epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, took part in a massive emergency response program and vaccinated three million children.

Lack of support for basic immunization programs means that MSF teams are seeing more and more measles outbreaks that are unnecessarily claiming children’s lives.

Great strides have been made to rid the world of measles - one of the biggest childhood killers that used to claim over two and a half million children’s lives a year. Following the launch of a global initiative in 2001, the numbers of children dying of measles-related conditions dropped by 78 percent. But recently, donors have cut back on funding measles immunization efforts. This trend now threatens to reverse the tremendous gains made.

“The problem is that the fight against measles is no longer seen as a political priority – not within ministries of health and not by donors, who are reducing funding,” said Gwenola François, measles vaccination campaign manager in the DRC. “It costs just one dollar for the vaccine to protect a child against measles for life. Organizations like MSF cannot just continue to rush in to put out the fires caused by these…long term deficiencies of measles prevention programs.”

“5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world.

Photo: © Gwenn Dubourthoumieu

What it costs to diagnose and cut the time to life-saving tuberculosis treatment

• One test cartridge of the new test costs at best US$17 and each machine is priced at $17,000 in developing countries. Those costs are still very high for developing countries and efforts must be made to reduce them and come up with a test that is equally well performing but cheaper.

• Treatment for drug-resistant TB can be up to almost $9,000 - nearly 475 times more than a $19 treatment course for drug-sensitive TB.

• The funding shortfall: WHO estimates that for 2012 there is US$1.5 billion shortfall to
prevent, test, and treat TB properly, $1 billion is needed for R&D for better tools including the development of a rapid and more affordable point-of-care TB test and new and better drugs.

“5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world.

At 21 years old Phumeza should have her whole life to look forward to. Right now she’s confined to a bed in a tuberculosis (TB) care centre in Khayelitsha near Cape Town, South Africa on treatment for the most virulent form of TB currently known – extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB. Phumeza doesn’t know how she contracted TB. She thinks it could have been on a crowded bus or at school. She knows she felt ill and that no-one could tell her what was wrong. So began a long and painful journey of misdiagnosis and waiting while she just got sicker and sicker. “At first, they gave me aspirins and paracetamol,” Phumeza said. “They didn’t see any TB on the smear they took. I had so many different tests but they still couldn’t see what was wrong! I just got more sick.” Finally, nearly two months later Phumeza was diagnosed in hospital with MDR-TB (multidrug-resistant TB) by which time she was so ill she was forced to drop out of school. “Sometimes I didn’t know whether I was coming or going,” she said. Last year for the first time in ten years, the number of people dying from TB worldwide dropped, but still every year we miss diagnosing and treating around three million cases of TB. And half of those people die as a result of not being treated. So many people with this curable disease fall through the net because, until recently, the tests to confirm that someone has active TB or not have been so completely inadequate. Now, a new test using molecular technology is clearing the path for getting many more people on the treatment they need earlier. It’s still only a start – too many patients will still be kept waiting for a diagnosis so they can get the treatment they need but some first steps have at least been taken to improve TB diagnostics. “5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world. Photo: © Samantha Reinder

At 21 years old Phumeza should have her whole life to look forward to. Right now she’s confined to a bed in a tuberculosis (TB) care centre in Khayelitsha near Cape Town, South Africa on treatment for the most virulent form of TB currently known – extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB.

Phumeza doesn’t know how she contracted TB. She thinks it could have been on a crowded bus or at school. She knows she felt ill and that no-one could tell her what was
wrong. So began a long and painful journey of misdiagnosis and waiting while she just got sicker and sicker.

“At first, they gave me aspirins and paracetamol,” Phumeza said. “They didn’t see any TB on the smear they took. I had so many different tests but they still couldn’t see what was
wrong! I just got more sick.”

Finally, nearly two months later Phumeza was diagnosed in hospital with MDR-TB (multidrug-resistant TB) by which time she was so ill she was forced to drop out of school.

“Sometimes I didn’t know whether I was coming or going,” she said.

Last year for the first time in ten years, the number of people dying from TB worldwide dropped, but still every year we miss diagnosing and treating around three million cases of TB. And half of those people die as a result of not being treated. So many people with this curable disease fall through the net because, until recently, the tests to confirm that someone has active TB or not have been so completely inadequate.

Now, a new test using molecular technology is clearing the path for getting many more people on the treatment they need earlier. It’s still only a start – too many patients will still be kept waiting for a diagnosis so they can get the treatment they need but some first steps have at least been taken to improve TB diagnostics.

“5 Lives” tells the stories of people who MSF works with every day, people whose lives often hinge on whether or not they can gain access to a simple medical intervention. These are situations that could be avoided with proper and sustainable funding and investment in public health. That’s why MSF supports calls to permanently allocate a small portion of a new financial transaction tax (FTT), which has been proposed by some governments, to support global health needs. A regular stream of funding would help provide some of the resources needed to address unchecked health crises around the world.

Photo: © Samantha Reinder