World Tuberculosis Day on March 24th: fighting a top ten killer

On March 24th 1882, German scientist Dr. Robert Koch found that tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 1982, a century after this discovery, the World Health Organization and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease sponsored the first World Tuberculosis Day. The event was meant to educate the public about the devastating health and economic consequences of the disease.

March 27, 2006 - The involvement of Novartis in tuberculosis (TB) drug research began long before the formation of Novartis, with the discovery of clofazimine in 1954 and rifampicin (jointly with Lepetit) in 1960. As a good corporate citizen, we continue our mission today, through TB research programs and drug donations.

A heavy human toll
TB is one of the top 10 causes of global mortality and morbidity. It kills two million people and infects two billion each year – or more than one-third of the world’s population. The global epidemic is growing and becoming more dangerous. Poor TB control programs, HIV/AIDS and immigration have caused the disease to spread, and the emergence of multi-drug-resistant TB strains are worsening the impact of the disease.

It is estimated that between 2002 and 2020, approximately one billion people will be newly infected, over 150 million people will get sick and 36 million will die of TB if controls are not improved. In Eastern Europe and Africa, TB deaths are increasing after almost 40 years of decline. In terms of numbers of cases, the biggest burden of TB is in Southeast Asia.

“Despite advances in therapies, TB still remains the most common infectious disease in the world and an urgent public health issue,” says Prof. Paul Herrling, Head of Corporate Research at Novartis and Chairman of the Board of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD). “We must intensify our efforts to find new treatment options for millions of TB patients, particularly offering hope for those with multi-drug-resistant strains. One of the main strategic objectives is to shorten the duration of TB treatment and overcome persistence.”

Providing patients with free treatment
Since 2003 Novartis has been partnering with the World Health Organization (WHO) to donate drugs that will help more than 500,000 TB patients over a five-year period.

Directly Observed Therapy Short-course (DOTS) is the core element of TB treatment as it helps to ensure that patients take the right number of tablets every day for the full course of the treatment (six or eight months) under the supervision of a health or community worker. Since its introduction in 1991, more than 17 million patients have received treatments under the DOTS strategy.

The formulations developed by Novartis reduce the number of tablets that patients must take during the intensive phase of the treatment to two or three per day from more than a dozen. In addition, the treatment is shortened to six months from eight months.

There is an urgent need to develop better tools for treatment and prevention of the disease in order to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of halving TB prevalence and deaths by 2015. Fighting TB means saving millions of lives and protecting the future of millions of children. At Novartis, we view this as an intrinsic part of our corporate citizenship commitment to playing our part – alongside governments and civil society – in support of the right to health.

Facts about TB

• Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious disease spread through the air by coughing and sneezing – like a cold.
• In the last century, 200 million people died of TB.
• Today TB kills 8,000 people a day – two million a year – making it the biggest killer of young people and adults in the world.
• Every second, someone in the world is newly infected with TB, 6 to 8 million new cases are diagnosed each year.
• 200 million people worldwide, or 10% of those infected, will develop active TB and potentially infect others for three decades.
• Resistant TB strains demand improved therapies and compliance.

More information on TB:
www.tbdots.com
www.novartis.com/corporate_citizenship/en/2006_who.shtml
www.novartisfoundation.com