Responding to HIV/AIDS pandemic & tackling NTDs are the focus of Health Affairs

Responding to HIV/AIDS pandemic & tackling NTDs are the focus of Nov/Dec 2009 ed of Health Affairs

A cluster of papers and perspectives in Health Affairs focuses on strategies and policies for fighting neglected diseases. Publication of the cluster was supported by Global Health Progress, an initiative of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). In the series:

• Health Affairs deputy editor Philip Musgrove and coauthor Peter Hotez argue that concerted efforts — from mass drug administration to nondrug interventions — could conquer many neglected diseases. Research, they say, is needed on four fronts: for diseases where no cheap, effective drugs exist; for backup drugs as protection against development of resistance; for vaccines wherever feasible; and for better understanding of nonbiological obstacles to effective delivery. “Neglected diseases affect millions of lives, yet can be treated or eliminated at a relatively small cost,” says Musgrove. “It’s time for the world to act.
• To date, global efforts to control tropical diseases have relied on mass drug administration. But this “magic bullet” approach in most cases will not be sufficient to stay ahead of constantly evolving microbes and parasites, according to Princeton University’s Adel Mahmoud and former National Institutes of Health director Elias Zerhouni. They support a comprehensive approach that includes a combined set of scientific, socioeconomic, educational, environmental, and workforce strategies. 
• Kenneth Gustavsen of Merck and Co. Inc. and Christy Hanson of the United States Agency for International Development see public-private partnerships as key to fighting neglected diseases, including collaborative efforts among global pharmaceutical and biotech companies and other stakeholders. Continued success of these partnerships, they say, depends on having a supportive policy environment.
• Similarly, Genzyme Corporation’s James A. Geraghty also calls for expanding the biotech industry’s involvement in fighting neglected diseases, arguing that companies have a responsibility to help in disease control. Policy changes that could attract more companies to do such work include federal income tax credits, as proposed in a paper by Gerard Anderson. At a modest cost, these could help usher in a new generation of treatment options for neglected diseases.
• Researchers Sarah E. Frew, Victor Y. Liu, and Peter A. Singer of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC) in Toronto, Ontario, write that health biotech firms in the global South are spurring growth in these economies by developing and selling vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics to local markets. These efforts should be accelerated through a business plan to support and grow sources of affordable innovation for neglected tropical diseases, the authors say.

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