$62 Million Worth of Donated Drugs for NTDs

Niger NTD Control Programme officially handed over to the Ministry of Health the $62.7m worth of donated drugs.

On April 23rd, 2008 the Niger NTD Control Programme officially handed over to the Ministry of Health the $62.7m worth of donated drugs that will be used in Niger’s 2008 Neglected Tropical Disease mass treatment campaign.

The ceremony was presided over by the Honourable Mr. Issa Lamine, the Minister of Health and Dr. Amadou Garba, the Niger NTD Control Programme Manager

The Niger NTD Control Programme is funded through USAID’s NTD Control Programme and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI). Other partners include the WHO, UNICEF, RISEAL, and the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI).

The drugs, to treat approximately 8 million people, are for lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), trachoma (preventable blindness), schistosomiasis (bilharzia) and soil-transmitted helminths (intestinal worms).

The drugs were donated from a variety of different pharmaceutical companies and partners. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer, through the International Trachoma Initiative, donated 14,431,680 tablets and 362,688 bottles of syrup of Zithromax for the treatment of trachoma. Merck and GSK, both through the Mectizan Donation Program, donated 14,813,000 tablets of Mectizan and 5,624,400 tablets of Albendazole (respectively) for the treatment of lymphatic filariasis. Other drug donations came from UNICEF who gave 145,000 tubes of tetracycline for trachoma, USAID who provided 3,100,000 tablets of Praziquantel for the treatment of schistosomiasis and 200,000 tablets of Albendazole for soil-transmitted helminths. In addition, the SCI provided enough funding to ensure that each health centre in the treatment regions had all the medicines required for possible side-effects.

The Minister of Health thanking the NTD partners for their support

The Minister of Health thanked the NTD partners for their ongoing financial and technical support and guaranteed the security of the donated drugs to ensure they reached the target population. Until the drugs are transported to regional and district health centres the Nigerien Red Cross has kindly provided a large secured store room in Niamey.

The 2008 integrated NTD treatment campaign, which will start on the 5th of May, is the second campaign organised by Niger’s NTD Control Programme.