Fighting diseases in the developing world
This year, over two million people will die from tuberculosis (TB). They will pass away after unimaginable suffering, most of them in the prime of their already-shortened lives.
Two million people. A shocking number, it is even more horrifying because tuberculosis is treatable. And yet, TB kills more people than any other infectious disease.
Tuberculosis spreads easily: one-third of the world's population is already infected with the TB bacillus. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is fueling TB's growth even more. And drug-resistant strains of TB are on the rise, spreading as populations become more mobile.
Dengue fever - also known as 'break-bone fever,' for the severe pain that accompanies it - is another affliction of the developing world. Dengue is now endemic in more than 100 countries, and causes half a million people to be hospitalized each year; in its most threatening form, Dengue hemorrhagic fever can be fatal mostly to children.
Malaria also remains a pressing public health issue and one of the most dangerous diseases. Though largely preventable, malaria infects between 300 and 650 million people each year and kills one to three million people a year worldwide.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the incidence of these diseases is accelerating rapidly, especially in developing countries. The need for new medicines to help patients with dengue fever, TB and malaria is urgent.
The Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD) was established to help fight these and other diseases, and ultimately improve the prosperity of developing countries.
“One of our major hopes, beyond actually delivering drugs to the patients who need them, is that the NITD will become a model of how a pharmaceutical company can help to alleviate the problem of access to medicine in poor countries. We hope that other companies will follow suit and that the NITD will become a center of knowledge and of education, helping people in the developing world learn how to continue to address these problems in their own countries.”
Professor Paul Herrling, Ph.D., Head of Corporate Research, Novartis, and Chair of the Board of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases
Visit the World Health Organization website
Visit the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases website