Joint effort means 750,000 of the world's poor will have acess to TB drugs

Thanks to a partnership between the World Health Organisation (WHO) and an international initiative, anti-tuberculosis drugs will now be available to people in poor countries.

The deal between the Stop TB Partnership's Global Drug Facility and UNITAID will deliver drugs and direct technical assistance, to more than three-quarters of a million people who otherwise would not receive treatment or might have their treatment interrupted because drugs were not available.

The project is restricted to anti-TB treatments suitable for people whose form of TB is not resistant to standard therapies, and means a stockpile of anti-TB drugs will be made available to countries facing shortages because of humanitarian emergencies or inadequate capacity for planning orders.

The $26.8 million initiative will ensure some 750,000 people in 19 countries, will have the cost of their anti-tuberculosis drug covered until 2008.

It will also provide drugs to countries expanding their TB control efforts who were promised support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria or another donor, but do not yet have the funds.

Experts believe TB and AIDS are the main health threats in Africa and say the two are closely linked, with victims of one often vulnerable to the other; a six-month course of treatment for TB costs $20.

Globally 8.8 million new cases and 1.6 million deaths occur from TB each year and left untreated, TB has the ability to develop into difficult to treat, drug-resistant strains.

According to Robert Matiru, operations manager of the Stop TB Partnership's Global Drugs Facility, the drugs will come from four generics manufacturers, in India, Lupin, Cadila, Sandoz India and Svizera in Europe.

Dr. Marcos Espinal, of the Stop TB Partnership says getting anti-TB drugs to people who need them and making sure they complete their treatment is the best weapon in preventing drug-resistant TB.

The joint Global Drug Facility/UNITAID project will provide first-line TB drugs to Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Iraq, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tajikistan, The Gambia, Togo and Uganda.

The Global Drug Facility is the drug supply arm of the Stop TB Partnership and provides countries with the drugs, technical assistance and supplies needed to diagnose and treat adults and children with both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB.

The Stop TB Partnership, hosted by WHO is a network of more then 500 international organizations, countries, patient groups, donors from the public and private sectors, and nongovernmental and governmental organizations that are working together to eliminate TB.

The UNITAID initiative was launched in September 2006 by Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom and aims to contribute to the scale-up of treatment in developing countries for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis by reducing the price of quality drugs and diagnostics and to accelerate the pace at which they are made available by mobilizing innovative financing mechanisms.