Child-friendly treatments and preventive therapy being developed against MDR-TB
Stellenbosch University and Unitaid have signed a US$ 18.9 million grant agreement to develop child-friendly…
31 Oct 2019
Today at a press conference on prevention, Sanofi, Unitaid and the Global Fund announced they will significantly lower the price of rifapentine, a critically important drug used to prevent tuberculosis (TB). In a landmark agreement between the three organisations, the price of rifapentine (Priftin®) will undergo a 66 percent discount. The deal will help efforts to treat latent TB infection, broadening access within the public sectors of low-income countries, lower-middle income countries, and upper-middle-income countries with a high burden of TB and TB-HIV.
The announcement follows news earlier in the week, about the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) M72/AS01E vaccine, which was found to contribute to preventing TB in 50 percent of people receiving it.
“If we are to end the TB emergency, we need a prevention revolution,” said José Luis Castro, Executive Director of The Union in a statement. “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.”
At the press conference, other significant announcements related to the prevention of TB were also unveiled:
Speaking to journalists at the press conference where the results were announced, Dr Jamie Tonsing, Director of The Union South East Asia office in New Delhi talked of Nandita Venkatesan, a TB Survivor, advocate and journalist, who featured in the Opening Ceremony earlier in the week: “we will be failing people like Nandita by failing to address prevention.”
TB prevention is one of the main themes of the 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health.
Tagged: drug resistance, press conference, prevention
RT @UnionConference: 'Not #deaf or dead - Evidence based advocacy towards a 3rd choice for all people with DR-TB'. https://t.co/04EkIibfP6…
RT @UnionConference: 'Not #deaf or dead - Evidence based advocacy towards a 3rd choice for all people with DR-TB'. https://t.co/04EkIibfP6…