Small U.S. Charity Seeks to Reintroduce Drug Vital for Fighting Black Fever
Charity News Online
A small charity based in San Francisco has conducted medical trials necessary to prove that paromomycin – a drug developed in the 1960s but given up later – is safe to be used to fight black fever, which kills more than half-million people across the world each year. Currently, the drug is in the process of obtaining approval from the Indian Government. Experts say that a course of treatment that could possibly eliminate the disease would cost just $10, The New York Times reported this week.
Black fever is the second-largest parasitic killer in the world after malaria. It is spread by sand flies, which multiply in the cow dung. Flies that have bitten infected humans transmit the disease when they bite another person. Smaller than mosquitoes, they can pass through most netting. Roughly 90 percent of black fever cases worldwide are found in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sudan and northeastern Brazil.
Should the drug be approved this fall, it will be the first time a charity organization has ushered the entry of a drug into the market. This new way of helping patients whose needs have otherwise not been met by for-profit pharmaceutical companies are gaining momentum. Many partnerships are now working to figure out a way to fight neglected diseases. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as Doctors Without Borders are examples or charities looking into the supply side of medicines. Another such group is Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, a nonprofit agency working on the fight against tuberculosis.
The San Francisco charity, The Institute for OneWorld Health focused on re-introducing paromomycin, developed in the 1960's. However, both the Internal Revenue Service and the World Trade Organization were skeptical of OneWorld Health's nonprofit status and to handover data from previous studies. Consequently, the organization needed to set up clinical trial-standards comparable to those is the U.S. and Europe in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Dr. Victoria Hale, former Genentech executive and Food and Drug Administration official founded OneWorld Health in 2001. She and her husband began from personal funds until they found support in the Gates foundation, among others. Dr. Hale told the New York Times, "My colleagues and mentors in the pharmaceutical industry told me it was a wild idea, that it would never work out, that I was jeopardizing my reputation...I started this organization knowing our first project had to be a winner or we wouldn't survive."
black fever, charity, OneWorld Health, India, WHO, Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders
Charity News Online
A small charity based in San Francisco has conducted medical trials necessary to prove that paromomycin – a drug developed in the 1960s but given up later – is safe to be used to fight black fever, which kills more than half-million people across the world each year. Currently, the drug is in the process of obtaining approval from the Indian Government. Experts say that a course of treatment that could possibly eliminate the disease would cost just $10, The New York Times reported this week.
Black fever is the second-largest parasitic killer in the world after malaria. It is spread by sand flies, which multiply in the cow dung. Flies that have bitten infected humans transmit the disease when they bite another person. Smaller than mosquitoes, they can pass through most netting. Roughly 90 percent of black fever cases worldwide are found in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sudan and northeastern Brazil.
Should the drug be approved this fall, it will be the first time a charity organization has ushered the entry of a drug into the market. This new way of helping patients whose needs have otherwise not been met by for-profit pharmaceutical companies are gaining momentum. Many partnerships are now working to figure out a way to fight neglected diseases. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as Doctors Without Borders are examples or charities looking into the supply side of medicines. Another such group is Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, a nonprofit agency working on the fight against tuberculosis.
The San Francisco charity, The Institute for OneWorld Health focused on re-introducing paromomycin, developed in the 1960's. However, both the Internal Revenue Service and the World Trade Organization were skeptical of OneWorld Health's nonprofit status and to handover data from previous studies. Consequently, the organization needed to set up clinical trial-standards comparable to those is the U.S. and Europe in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Dr. Victoria Hale, former Genentech executive and Food and Drug Administration official founded OneWorld Health in 2001. She and her husband began from personal funds until they found support in the Gates foundation, among others. Dr. Hale told the New York Times, "My colleagues and mentors in the pharmaceutical industry told me it was a wild idea, that it would never work out, that I was jeopardizing my reputation...I started this organization knowing our first project had to be a winner or we wouldn't survive."
black fever, charity, OneWorld Health, India, WHO, Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders
posted by Lisa Vronskaya at 2:12 PM
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