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Press Release
9 March 2006
£11 million boost to tackle infectious and forgotten diseases
Gareth Thomas, International Development Minister, today announced £11 million in funding to tackle both infectious and neglected diseases such as malaria, human sleeping sickness, kala-azar and Chagas disease, that take more than a million lives every year and continue to threaten more than half a billion people.
Treatment of these diseases is either non-existent or inadequate primarily because there is no international market to drive drug development. They are not common in rich countries and victims, almost exclusively in developing countries, are invariably too poor to afford what drugs do exist. The situation is exacerbated by poor healthcare infrastructure, often with infections concentrated in remote and sometimes politically unstable areas.
All of these neglected and infectious diseases are treatable, but in the case of kala-azar or “black fever”, the current treatment is 70 years old; other treatments have toxic side effects or drug resistant forms of diseases have developed. Chagas disease infects 18 million worldwide, killing up to 50,000 people a year, sleeping sickness claims up to half a million victims a year, but these blood borne parasitic diseases often have difficult to detect symptoms, leading to chronic suffering and painful death.
£6.5 million will help the organisation
Drugs for Neglected Diseases (DNDi)
plug the research and development gap into essential medicines that are too
expensive or outdated to tackle forgotten diseases.
£4.5 million will go to the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), co-sponsored by WHO, the World Bank, UNDP and UNICEF, which will support research on infectious diseases and training to help developing countries with prevention and control.
Speaking to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Gareth Thomas said:
“Forgotten and neglected diseases threaten up to half a billion people world-wide. Infectious diseases, such as malaria, kill a child every thirty seconds. Problems like these eat away at the health and wealth of developing countries.
“Developing better and new treatments, and giving people the tools to tackle disease, is vital if we are to address the long-term health, not only of individuals, but of poor nations too.
“Targeting significant funding, and working through key partners to bring about these changes, is the most effective way forward in fighting diseases that continue to cripple the people and economies of the poorest countries.
“Funding initiatives such as these is a key way we fight poverty, tackling its contributory factors and working towards the Millennium Development Goals.”
DFID funds and works with key partnership organisations which are best placed to influence and deliver the best results through boosting research and development and improving access to medicines for the poorest people. Driving delivery forward through the creation of public/private partnerships is a key method bringing together the private sector with NGOs and Government funding.
DNDi works with both public and private organisations through innovative partnerships, implementing drug research programmes. It makes sure that medicines get to the people at risk by working with the existing distribution networks of drug companies and key partners such as Medicins Sans Frontieres. DNDi’s aim is to deliver up to eight new “field relevant” treatments for people at risk by 2014, and has, over the last five years, managed 20 projects, five of which are in late stage development.
TDR is a global programme established in 1975, co-sponsored by UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and WHO, which works closely with research institutions and national health programmes to improve existing and develop new approaches for preventing, diagnosing, treating, and controlling neglected infectious diseases. It also strengthens the capacity of developing country institutions to undertake research to develop and put in place new and improved disease control approaches. Through collaboration with industry, philanthropic and public institutions, TDR has helped with the development of half of all new drugs for tropical diseases over the last 30 years.
Notes for editors
DFID currently funds seven product development public, private partnerships; increasing funding to International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), supporting research on Microbicides, and last year committing a further £10 million for five years to the Medicines for Malaria Venture. Earlier this week, we also announced £6.5 million for the TB Alliance. For more information about how DFID supports key partnerships organisations and works towards the Millennium Development Goals
DNDi was established in 2003 by seven organisations: five public sector institutions – the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation from Brazil, the Indian Council for Medical Research, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Ministry of Health of Malaysia and France’s Pasteur Institute; one humanitarian organisation, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF); and one international research organisation, the UNDP/World Bank/WHO’s Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), which acts as a permanent observer to the initiative. DNDi’s aim is to improve the quality of life and the health of people suffering from neglected diseases by using an alternative model to develop drugs for these diseases and ensuring equitable access to new and field relevant health tools. Through a not-for-profit model, driven by the public sector, a variety of players collaborate to raise awareness of the need to research and develop drugs for those neglected diseases that fall outside the scope of market-driven research and development (R&D). They also build public responsibility and leadership in addressing the needs of these patients.
The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) is an independent global programme of scientific collaboration. Established in 1975 and co-sponsored by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), it aims to help coordinate, support and influence global efforts to combat a portfolio of major diseases of the poor and disadvantaged. TDR currently works on a portfolio of ten diseases.
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For further information, contact Rhyddid Carter on 020 7023 0849 or 020 7023 0600 or Vickie Sheriff on 07768 921 383; e-mail pressoffice@dfid.gov.uk or call our Public Enquiries Point on 0845 300 4100.