Tatum Anderson

Cancer doctors pledge to widen access to pain relief in developing countries

Cancer advocates plan to broker deals with drug companies to get cheaper, more plentiful supplies of pain relief drugs to patients in developing countries using models pioneered in the field of HIV/AIDS.

The plans form part of the Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative (GAPRI), a strategy launched at the World Cancer Congress, in China on 19 August. Led by the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), which represents 350 cancer charities including Cancer Research UK, GAPRI has the backing of organisations including the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society, and the World Economic Forum.

GAPRI will tackle the lack of access to strong opioid based pain relief. Today, a few rich nations, including the UK and US, consume .......For more

The politics of pain

Pain control

Pain relief is often taken for granted in the Western world, but in about 150 countries the use of morphine is severely restricted. Tatum Anderson investigates how this has come about, and what steps are being taken to stop patients living and dying in extreme pain.

Dozens of recycled plastic mineral water bottles are filled with brightly coloured solutions. The bottles are full of oral morphine, colour coded for different strengths—green for the weakest, then pink, and blue for the strongest. Every day, teams of nurses take them to paediatric and cancer wards and patients living at home near Kampala, Uganda. To view the article click here.

BIOTEC leads Thailand’s leapfrog towards self-sufficiency

If all goes well, the first malaria drug developed by Thai researchers could reach human clinical trials at the beginning of next year.

The drug, dubbed P218, is the product of research carried out by a group at BIOTEC, a research centre created by the Thai government to generate biotechnology innovations.

Although several international partners, including Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), Yale University, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Monash University in Australia, have been involved along the way, it was BIOTEC that conducted the initial research that has eventually allowed new drug candidates, such as P218, to be developed.

See the rest of the story here. 

Guardian Development Competition Longlist: Bed nets for all?

 

There is a river which runs through Goundry, a village in rural Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Actually it's more of a stream with lots of exposed riverbed even as the rainy season finishes. And among the still pools of mustard-coloured water, if you look closely enough, you can see the darting of tiny mosquito larvae.

See the rest of the story here .

Tide turns for drug manufacturing in Africa

With several efforts underway to increase the local production of drugs in developing countries, Tatum Anderson assesses the pros and cons of manufacturing medicines in Africa

See the rest of the story here

Open source: the way forward in the search for new treatments for the infectious diseases of poverty?

17 March 2010

A collaboration, called the Open Source Drug Discovery Foundation (OSDD), plans to use voluntary and open efforts to accelerate the development of affordable drugs for diseases including malaria, leishmaniasis and – first – tuberculosis.

Few if any new drugs have been created for many of these diseases, because they disproportionately affect the poor and pharmaceutical companies say they would have little hope of recouping any investments in such drugs. TB kills around 1.6 million people a year but only a handful of drugs have been developed in decades more>>.

Battle for life starts before birth

   12 March 2010

Newborn babies have a pretty rotten chance of survival in developing countries. Each year more than 4 million babies die in teh first month, 2 million in the first week, and as many as 2 million die before they are a couple of days old. When the chances of survival are so proor, many motehres prefer not to name their babies until they have managed to live for a few weeks More>>.

How can child and maternal mortality be cut?

  BMJ  2010;340:c431 (Published )

With only five years to go, the millennium development goals to reduce maternal and child mortality remain a long way off target. Tatum Anderson looks at the problems. More>>

Neglected diseases get the mathematical treatment

TropIKA.net Jan 26, 2010

Infectious disease modelling is a new and sometimes controversial discipline. TropIKA.net speaks to one of the leaders in the field - Professor Sir Roy Anderson More>>

Burkina Faso welcomes drug trials

  December 10th 2009

New clinics allow African researchers to test the latest drugs locally. But the logistical problems remain a challenge, writes Tatum Anderson.

Read the rest of the story on the Guardian Weekly website.  

Innovative financing of health care, BMJ, November 4, 2009

Published 4 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4235
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4235

International Aid

Innovative financing of health care  With national budgets stretched, countries are trying to find new ways to fund aid to developing countries, Tatum Anderson reports

Morocco’s airline travellers will soon be contributing to the cost of drugs to treat malaria and antiretrovirals to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV and treat infected children after a new tax on flights is introduced. Morocco joins over 30 other countries that collect taxes on airline tickets (Norway also contributes part of its tax on carbon dioxide emissions). So far, the $1.2bn (£75m) raised has enabled aid agencies to negotiate up to 70% discounts on drug purchases and buy more drugs for people who cannot afford them.

^{See the rest of this article at BMJ}

Confusion over counterfeit drugs in Uganda

The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9681

 

Uganda is under pressure to revise a draft law to combat counterfeit products, which, as it stands, could inadvertently hinder patients' access to generic drugs. Tatum Anderson reports.

 

The Ugandan Government is considering amendments to a proposed anticounterfeit law after pressure from public health activists and its own nascent pharmaceutical industry who say that the law could hamper access to affordable drugs in the country More>>  

Firms target nutrition for the poor

BBC News Interactive, June 24, 2009

The nutrition sachets have saved countless children's lives. Rip the top off a small sachet, the size of a hand, and inside is a delicious, creamy peanut goo that you suck from the packet. It is messy and delicious. And it has already saved the lives of countless children on the brink of death from starvation around the world. Inspired by a hazelnut chocolate spread eaten by children throughout Europe at breakfast time, these sachets are used to treat children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. They contain a high-energy food crammed with high-protein peanut, milk, sugar, oils and fortified with extra vitamins and minerals. The sachets have revolutionised emergency feeding in humanitarian emergencies because they can be eaten directly from the packet, do not require refrigeration or mixing with clean water - often in short supply - and can be stored for years More on BBC website>> .

Beating the brain drain: West African research centre shows it can be done

Jun 3, 2009, TropIKA.net

The brain drain is a term that fails to convey the staggering number of trained professionals who leave developing countries every year. In Africa, estimates in recent years have put the number at 20,000 annually. Ethiopia lost 75 per cent of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991.

Such a massive exodus of qualified Africans is widely seen as stifling both economic and human development. But an innovative strategy embarked upon by a research institution in the West African state of Mali has managed, at least in a small way, to reverse the tide.

The Malaria Research Training Centre (MRTC) runs a scheme, with international collaborators, that has created a critical mass of African scientists able to study malaria and provide evidence to influence control strategies in a country where malaria kills more children under five than any other disease. More on TropIKA.net.

Global Fund looks to boost private sector contributions

The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9675, Page 1594, May 9, 2009

 

Original Text

With donations from governments falling because of the economic downturn, the Global Fund is hoping that an innovative product for the private sector can fill the gap. Tatum Anderson reports.

 

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is entering the world of high-finance to raise funds for global health projects.

 

It plans to issue innovative financial products called Exchange Traded Funds in the coming months and by the end of the year to try to tap into the stellar wealth of the glo ...More>>>

Novartis under fire for accepting new reward for old drug

The Lancet, Volume 37, April 25, 2009

Swiss drug firm Novartis has been accused of abusing an award system designed to encourage innovation for diseases that mainly affect developing countries. Tatum Anderson reports. More>>

Vaccine charity weathers downturn by raising £50m through the banks

Evening Standard, April 15, 2009

A charity is to raise £50million for vaccines in undeveloped countries by approaching the financial markets. Read more>>>

Hard Times for Health Charities

 February 24, 2009

International health charities are being forced to consider unusual plans to raise money as the global economic crisis takes its toll on their finances, writes Tatum Anderson. Read more>>

The price of innoculation

September 11, 2008 Guardian Weekly

Tatum Anderson writes that better monitoring is needed in order for the manufacture of third-world vaccines to be more effective.

Tackling the new tuberculosis

Guardian Weekly, June 5th 2008

Tuberculosis is back, complete with new and deadlier strains that kill 2 million people a year worldwide. But these days it's non-profit groups rather than big pharmaceutical companies that are leading the fight against it, writes Tatum Anderson.

Model for malaria

Nursing Standard, Feb 20-26, 2008

A few miles from the road to Mount Kenya in huge expanse of flat, vibrant green.  These are the rural areas, the flooded rice fields of central Kenya.

Battles won against Malaria

Guardian Weekly, January 3rd, 2008

The combined benefits of effective distribution of mosquito nets and insecticides, and a new generation of anti-malaria drugs, has seen cases of the disease fall by 77% in some areas of Africa. In equatorial areas, however, where the parasite prevails and distribution is difficult, Malaria continues to be a threat. Tatum Anderson reports

Turning plants into pills in Kenya

December 13, 2007, SciDev.Net

Traditional healers are joining forces with plant chemists in Kenya to develop antimalarials isolated from plants, reports Tatum Anderson.

In the shadow of Mount Kenya, traditional healer Jack Githae enters what he describes as his 'natural pharmacy'. It's a dense area of bush where elephants occasionally wander packed with a range of plants and trees from the African olive to the prickly euphorbia. Read the story on the SciDev.Net website or....

Trip into the unknown

Nature, November 22, 2007

A plant in Uganda hopes to sell cut-price drugs by taking advantage of exemptions from rules that protect patents. But its operators face major obstacles, as Tatum Anderson reports.

Mobile phones reach Uganda's villages

BBC News, November 15, 2007

Kkonkoma, Uganda: Not far from the equator, a ribbon of red dirt track leads off the main road. see story on BBC site

Growing wiser - India is testing its traditional medicines

The Economist print edition Aug 16th, 2007

MODERN, Western medicine tends to pooh-pooh its herbal cousin. It is true that synthetic pharmaceuticals are purer, more reliable and often more effective than herbs. But many of them have herbal origins, and the sight of pharmacists botanising (collecting herbs from the countryside for sale as medicine) was common in Europe within living memory.

Not so EASSy

Telecoms in Africa

From The Economist print edition, Aug 9, 2007

A plan to run a submarine cable down Africa's east coast runs into difficulty

THE East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), a project to wire up several African countries with high-speed optical fibre, is not living up to its name. The plan, hatched in 2003, was simple enough: lay an 9,900km (6,200-mile) submarine cable along the east coast of the continent, from Sudan to South Africa, touching at several points along the way, and then link it up with the rest of the world. But the scheme has become entangled in disagreements between operators and governments over its business model.

Millennium goals are missing the mark

Guardian Weekly, June 8, 2007

Two years ago Fatima spent her days lugging huge plastic containers of water from the communal tap to her family home and looking after her brothers in the outskirts of Kampala. Today she is off to her local primary school in a smart green uniform.

Lessons at the People's University

Guardian Abroad, May 16, 2007

Douglas Gillam gave up a maths degree to fight the Nazis. So when his plane was shot down over enemy territory in 1943 he might have been surprised to know how soon he would be back at university, particularly as this new centre of learning would be at a prisoner of war camp in Germany.

Click here to see story on Guardian website

Battles with Big Pharma

Guardian Weekly, May 11, 2007

When the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis began to sell the drug Glivec, it was widely viewed as a breakthrough, promising hope to patients with a rare form of cancer called chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). Five years later Glivec is at the centre of a politically charged legal case that has provoked the ire of the international community.