UNITAID, the public health funding mechanism supported largely by a tax on airline tickets, has pledged more than US $60 million to speed the uptake of newly approved MDR-TB drugs in low- and middle-income countries.
“This grant demonstrates that a broad-based innovative funding mechanism can have a major impact,” says José Luis Castro, Executive Director of The Union. “UNITAID is the first global health organisation to use buy-side market leverage to make life-saving health products better and more affordable for developing countries.”
The grant to Partners in Health (PIH), Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Interactive Research & Development (IRD) will provide funding for them to work with 17 national TB programmes to enroll patients for treatment using bedaquiline and delamanid.
“We are pleased to see the increasing use and evaluation of new tuberculosis drugs. This is also the strategy for The Union’s STREAM clinical trial, which is expanding to test additional shortened MDR-TB regimens,” said Castro.
“All of our combined efforts are needed to address the critical problem of multidrug-resistant TB, which is a public health threat everywhere, not only in low- and middle-income countries.”
The World Health Organization reported that there were around 470,000 cases of MDR-TB worldwide and 170,000 deaths. The standard treatment for MDR-TB has only about a 48% success rate, in part because the treatment is arduous, lengthy, and expensive.
In addition to providing effective treatment for MDR-TB patients, the funding from UNITAID is expected to strengthen the market for MDR-TB drugs, thereby increasing accessibility to existing and new drugs.
Launched in 2006 by a broad coalition of countries seeking to create a new innovative funding mechanism for public health, UNITAID has successfully increased funding for greater access to treatments and diagnostics for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in low-income countries. Based in Geneva and hosted by the World Health Organization, UNITAID receives approximately half of its finances from a levy on airline tickets.
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