Reasonable Rascal
06-25-02, 14:34
Date: 24 Jun 2002
From: ProMED-mail
Source: All Africa.com /UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
[edited] <http://allafrica.com/stories/200206210120.html>
New Hope for Treatment of Killer Disease Kala-Azar
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A new treatment has recently been developed for leishmaniasis, also known as [kala-azar &] black fever, a disease that each year afflicts some 500 000 people globally and kills at least 60 000. The United Nations' World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement this week that scientists had developed a new treatment found to be at least 95 percent effective in [clinical trials in] patients who developed the more lethal "visceral" form of leishmaniasis. [see: <http://www.who.int/inf/en/pr-2002-46.html>]
The new drug, Miltefosine, the first oral drug developed against leishmaniasis, has already been approved for use in India, which has half the global burden of the disease. Miltefosine was developed [through a cooperative effort] by the Indian government, the German biopharmaceutical company Zentaris, the [WHO] Tropical Diseases Research program, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank.
WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland noted "We now have a powerful new tool to fight this terrible disease. The combined efforts of these partners have opened a new era in the fight against visceral leishmaniasis."
Considered one of the world's most neglected diseases, leishmaniasis -- a parasitic "wasting" disease transmitted through the bite of a sandfly -- afflicts some of the world's poorest people, with 80 percent of its victims earning less than US $2 a day. Until now, all treatments for leishmaniasis had had substantial drawbacks, ranging from high cost to high toxicity, and even causing irreversible damage such as diabetes,
the WHO stated this week. The current treatment for one patient (Pentostam, antimony, amphotericin B or pentamidine) is prohibitive for most Sudanese sufferers from leishmaniasis; it can cost as much as 250 000 Sudanese pounds (about $97), about 8 times the average monthly wage of a Sudanese government employee, according to US-based Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED-mail).
The disease is found in parts of 88 countries, but about 90 percent of all black fever cases occur in 5 countries: India, Brazil, Sudan, Nepal, & Bangladesh. In the 1990s, Sudan suffered a crisis with 100 000 deaths among people at risk, according to the WHO. WHO cited studies indicating that in some villages up to half the population succumbed to the disease, and said one report suggested that during this decade, visceral leishmaniasis claimed 100 000 lives in a population of around 300 000 in western Upper Nile province.[see: <http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/index.html>]
In Sudan, where the visceral form is known as kala-azar, leishmaniasis is most common in the conflict-affected Blue Nile, Upper Nile, Jonglei, and Kassala regions, as well as in the area north of the capital, Khartoum. There are also indications that the disease is present in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan State, south-central Sudan, according to humanitarian sources. Increasing disease activity has also been noted in the eastern state of Al-Qadarif, notably along the Rahad and Dinder Rivers, while activity -- formerly prevalent -- has been decreasing in Sinnar and Sinjah, according to ProMED-mail. The
international medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres complained in February 2002 that systematic looting of the village of Nimne in oil-rich western Upper Nile had disrupted a kala-azar project with 107 patients under treatment and a basic health care unit with 1700-2000 consultations per month.
Over 40 000 fatal cases were reported from the western Upper Nile between 1984 and 1991, and the death toll among the Nuer and Dinka peoples in southern Sudan was estimated at 200 000 between 1988 and 1995, ProMED-mail added.
--
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org>
[Miltefosine (hexadecylphosphocholine) belongs to the drug family of alkyl-lysophospholipids (ALP), which has broad antiparasitic and anti-tumor activities. Leishmaniasis disease is often related to environmental changes such as deforestation, building of dams, new irrigation schemes, urbanisation, and migration of non-immune people to endemic areas, according to the WHO.
<http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/leisdis1.html>
The incidence of the disease is also severely underestimated, so that the actual health loss associated with it is greater than official figures suggest. - Mod.EP]
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Provided as a public and professional service under the auspices of the Fair Use for Education doctrine. Commercial reproduction prohibited.
From: ProMED-mail
Source: All Africa.com /UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
[edited] <http://allafrica.com/stories/200206210120.html>
New Hope for Treatment of Killer Disease Kala-Azar
--------------------------------------------------
A new treatment has recently been developed for leishmaniasis, also known as [kala-azar &] black fever, a disease that each year afflicts some 500 000 people globally and kills at least 60 000. The United Nations' World Health Organisation (WHO) said in a statement this week that scientists had developed a new treatment found to be at least 95 percent effective in [clinical trials in] patients who developed the more lethal "visceral" form of leishmaniasis. [see: <http://www.who.int/inf/en/pr-2002-46.html>]
The new drug, Miltefosine, the first oral drug developed against leishmaniasis, has already been approved for use in India, which has half the global burden of the disease. Miltefosine was developed [through a cooperative effort] by the Indian government, the German biopharmaceutical company Zentaris, the [WHO] Tropical Diseases Research program, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank.
WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland noted "We now have a powerful new tool to fight this terrible disease. The combined efforts of these partners have opened a new era in the fight against visceral leishmaniasis."
Considered one of the world's most neglected diseases, leishmaniasis -- a parasitic "wasting" disease transmitted through the bite of a sandfly -- afflicts some of the world's poorest people, with 80 percent of its victims earning less than US $2 a day. Until now, all treatments for leishmaniasis had had substantial drawbacks, ranging from high cost to high toxicity, and even causing irreversible damage such as diabetes,
the WHO stated this week. The current treatment for one patient (Pentostam, antimony, amphotericin B or pentamidine) is prohibitive for most Sudanese sufferers from leishmaniasis; it can cost as much as 250 000 Sudanese pounds (about $97), about 8 times the average monthly wage of a Sudanese government employee, according to US-based Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED-mail).
The disease is found in parts of 88 countries, but about 90 percent of all black fever cases occur in 5 countries: India, Brazil, Sudan, Nepal, & Bangladesh. In the 1990s, Sudan suffered a crisis with 100 000 deaths among people at risk, according to the WHO. WHO cited studies indicating that in some villages up to half the population succumbed to the disease, and said one report suggested that during this decade, visceral leishmaniasis claimed 100 000 lives in a population of around 300 000 in western Upper Nile province.[see: <http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/index.html>]
In Sudan, where the visceral form is known as kala-azar, leishmaniasis is most common in the conflict-affected Blue Nile, Upper Nile, Jonglei, and Kassala regions, as well as in the area north of the capital, Khartoum. There are also indications that the disease is present in the Nuba Mountains region of Southern Kordofan State, south-central Sudan, according to humanitarian sources. Increasing disease activity has also been noted in the eastern state of Al-Qadarif, notably along the Rahad and Dinder Rivers, while activity -- formerly prevalent -- has been decreasing in Sinnar and Sinjah, according to ProMED-mail. The
international medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres complained in February 2002 that systematic looting of the village of Nimne in oil-rich western Upper Nile had disrupted a kala-azar project with 107 patients under treatment and a basic health care unit with 1700-2000 consultations per month.
Over 40 000 fatal cases were reported from the western Upper Nile between 1984 and 1991, and the death toll among the Nuer and Dinka peoples in southern Sudan was estimated at 200 000 between 1988 and 1995, ProMED-mail added.
--
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org>
[Miltefosine (hexadecylphosphocholine) belongs to the drug family of alkyl-lysophospholipids (ALP), which has broad antiparasitic and anti-tumor activities. Leishmaniasis disease is often related to environmental changes such as deforestation, building of dams, new irrigation schemes, urbanisation, and migration of non-immune people to endemic areas, according to the WHO.
<http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/leish/leisdis1.html>
The incidence of the disease is also severely underestimated, so that the actual health loss associated with it is greater than official figures suggest. - Mod.EP]
--------------------------------------------------
Provided as a public and professional service under the auspices of the Fair Use for Education doctrine. Commercial reproduction prohibited.