Rockbites: Tuberculosis treatment costs reduced for poor countries

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Tuberculosis treatment costs reduced for poor countries
24 July 2001

(As a human rights oriented Web site—we’re here to raise funds for human rights as well as to expose cutting edge pop—Rockbites occasionally brings you non-music-related stories. Here’s one.)

Last week the online version of the journal Science reported that a collaboration among the World Health Organization (WHO), the Harvard Medical School, and international humanitarian/medical organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins San Frontières (MSF) has succeeded in significantly reducing the costs to poor countries for treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
    The success, which follows another in April in which a coalition of drug companies backed down from their efforts to inflate the costs of HIV medications, makes more money available for so-called first-line tuberculosis treatments. This is critical for developing nations, who are strapped for cash while simultaneously struggling with a disproportionately high incidence of disease. Reducing financial pressures in this way makes countries less vulnerable to political and human rights abuses.
    Cases of tuberculosis are on the rise worldwide, with more than 3 million individuals dying of the disease each year. MDR-TB, while less common, threatens containment of regular TB—MDR-TB is gaining ground because it often goes untreated. Until the present breakthrough, a single person’s treatment for MDR-TB cost US$13,000. The global marketplace and governmental controls failed to address the problem.
    The WHO has now implemented a program of regulatory measures under their so called Green Light Committee, while MSF now serves as a negotiator and bulk purchaser for the MDR-TB drugs. The result is a reduction in cost of up to 96%. For example, single dosage cost for the essential drug clycloserine dropped from $3.38 to $0.14.
    Bernard Pécoul, MD, director of Doctors Without Borders’ Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines and one of the Science Magazine paper’s authors, writes “This project proves that with an organized system of procurement, prices can be reduced dramatically and people with this form of TB will no longer be condemned to death.” | Doctors Without Borders | | World Health Organization | | Science Magazine online | | article abstract (free registration required) | | top of page |

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