Olayinka Oyegbile Hyderabad, India
A significant breakthrough on reduction of price for tuberculosis (TB) treatment drug has been reached at the ongoing 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health holding in Hyderabad, India.
This was announced by Unitaid, the Global Fund and Sanofi, the global biopharmaceutical company manufacturing rifapentine, a critically important drug used to prevent tuberculosis (TB).
The current price at $45 (about N16, 020) was slashed to $15 (about N5, 340) as a way of making the drug available to patients especially in poor countries.
Eight countries, including Nigeria (4%) account for two thirds of global TB cases.
Others are India which tops with (27%), Bangladesh (4%), China (9%), Indonesia (8%), the Philippines (6%), Pakistan (6%), and South Africa (3%).
Speaking on the landmark agreement, the Executive Director of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), the conveners of the conference, José Luis Castro, said: “If we are to end the TB emergency, we need a prevention revolution. It is indeed timely that we are seeing such promising movement on all facets of prevention – vaccines, drug prices and new drugs – now we need to ensure that going forward, preventing wherever we treat becomes the new normal.”
The Unitaid’s Executive Director Lelio Marmora observed that “Effective TB prevention will be a game-changer in the global fight to eliminate one of the major killer diseases.
“This lifesaving drug has, until now, been completely unaffordable in developing countries. This agreement will help transform political commitment to tangible action.”
Executive Director of the Global Fund, Peter Sands, said: “Innovative partnerships can save lives. At the discounted price, many people at risk of getting TB will have access to more effective treatment and can stay healthy, and that helps build more stable and prosperous communities.”
The World Health Organisation Global TB Programme described the move as a significant development.
Its Director Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, said: “The WHO Global TB Programme welcomes this significant development and congratulates the partners involved and early implementers of the 3HP regimen for their contributions to lower the price of rifapentine.
“We hope that countries with the highest TB burdens can benefit from this price reduction and move swiftly towards the United Nations High-level Meeting target of providing TB preventive treatment to at least 30 million eligible individuals by 2022. “Continued efforts to make medicines more affordable and patient-friendly will facilitate the task for national TB and HIV programmes and quicken their pace to scale up TB preventive treatment services appropriately.”
Before now, preventive TB therapy took six to 36 months and uptake was low.
A rifapentine-based regimen, on the other hand, shortens treatment to 12 weekly doses in combination with another medicine, isoniazid.
The WHO recommends the use of this regimen for treatment of latent TB infection in people living with HIV and contacts of TB cases of any age. Research shows that patients are far more likely to complete shorter treatment courses.
A quarter of the world’s population is infected with latent TB – they have no symptoms, are not contagious and most do not know they are infected.
Without treatment, 5% to 10% of these people – 85 million to 170 million people globally – will develop active TB, the form which makes people sick and can be transmitted from person to person. HIV infection makes people up to 37 times more likely to fall ill with the active disease. Close to 1.5 million people die of TB every year.
Some 3,500 delegates from over 80 countries are attending the event declared open on Wednesday by Indian Vice President, Shri M Venkaiah Naidu.
The conference ends on Saturday.
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