In Brazil, Field Trials To Treat World's Poor

More good work from the Gates Foundation...



The global health community has known for a long time about the wide-ranging complications that hookworm causes, but pharmaceutical companies have had little incentive to develop a vaccine: Most of those infected are too poor ever to pay for medicine, so recovering expensive development costs would be a long shot.
But now the medical ghetto of neglected diseases -- the field concerned with ailments affecting the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2 a day -- is undergoing a transformation, thanks to an influx of cash from wealthy philanthropists and an emerging development model that promotes public-private partnerships.
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The effects of the funding are hard to miss: Since 1975, only 13 drugs targeting neglected diseases have been launched, according to a study published this year by the London School of Economics and Political Science. But at the end of 2004 alone, 63 projects to develop such drugs were underway, according to the study, and standard attrition rates indicate that eight or nine of those would reach the market.

Although sub-Saharan Africa is generally hit hardest by neglected diseases, Brazil has emerged as an important testing ground for the approach. In addition to the hookworm trial, tests across the country are targeting diseases such as leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis.