Posted on 07/31/2006 12:04:43 AM PDT by neverdem
PATNA, India — The drug that could have cured Munia Devi through a series of cheap injections was identified decades ago but then died in the research pipeline because there was no profit in it.
So Mrs. Devi lay limp in a hospital bed here recently, her spleen and liver bulging from under her rib cage as a bilious yellow liquid dripped into her thin arm. The treatment she was receiving can be toxic, and it costs $500. But it was her best hope to cure black fever, a disease known locally as kala azar, which kills an estimated half-million people worldwide each year, almost all of them poor like Mrs. Devi.
Soon, however, all that may change. A small charity based in San Francisco has conducted the medical trials needed to prove that the drug is safe and effective. Now it is on the verge of getting final approval from the Indian government. A course of treatment with the drug is expected to cost just $10, and experts say it could virtually eliminate the disease.
If approval is granted as expected this fall, it will be the first time a charity has succeeded in ushering a drug to market.
This novel way of helping people whose needs have not been met by for-profit pharmaceutical companies is gaining traction. Several partnerships are working to develop drugs to fight neglected diseases, underwritten by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders and other groups. Another nonprofit agency, the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, is searching for a means to prevent tuberculosis.
For its first project, the San Francisco charity, the Institute for OneWorld Health, focused on reclaiming the all but abandoned drug, paromomycin, which research found promising in the 1960’s.
That was the easy part. Its hurdles lay elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
IIRC, recent veterans have contracted kala azar.
What is Black Fever?
Black fever is a deadly disease transmitted via the bite of an infected sand fly. It usually develops over several months or years. If black fever is not treated, it can be fatal.
Black fever is also called kala-azar and leishmaniasis.
What Causes Black Fever?
Black fever is caused by a protozoa called Leishmania. The parasitic life cycle of leishamania includes the sandfly and an appropriate host. Humans are one of those hosts.
Symptoms of Black Fever?
Some common symptoms of black fever are:
persistent fever
night sweats
fatigue
weakness
appetite loss
weight loss
abdominal discomfort, vague
vomiting (children)
diarrhea (children)
cough (children)
scaly skin
anemia
gray, dark, ashen skin
thinning hair
enlarged spleen
enlarged liver
enlarged lymph nodes
Can Black Fever be Treated?
Yes. If treated properly, black fever can be cured. The most common treatment is medicine containing antimony compounds. Cure rates are high with antimony compounds. For best results, treatment should be given before damage to the immune system has occurred.
Complications of Black Fever?
Some common complications are:
facial disfigurement
damaged immune system
hemorrhage
WARNING GRAPHIC PIC
MPIbpC: Leishmaniase geheilt
Address:http://www.mpibpc.gwdg.de/abteilungen/293/PR/00_01/bild3.html Changed:7:20 AM on Saturday, January 29, 2000
The government of India had to be sold on this stuff. I guess they liked the old arsenic treatments better huh.
Good for them. This is how the market is supposed to work.
Drugs like that are supposed to get government money. Too bad all of our government money goes towards 'more important' diseases.
like teaching homosexuality acceptance in school, benefits for illegal aliens, embryonic steam cells instead of the useful stuff and the AIDS thing where they give $15 billion to African dictators and say it is "fighting aids" somehow.... these kinds of diseases?
Something like that.
I think government should hand out guns to the armless.
What Ms. Devi is suffering is visceral leishmaniasis. This form of the disease is relatively rare outside India.
Far more common is cutaneous leishmaniasis, which is rarely fatal but can be disfiguring. It is relatively easy to contract this disease in may parts of the Middle East, Mexico, and Central and South America. You won't find it in South East Asia, though.
I've seen some of this disease, but I've never heard of this particular treatment. What I have seen is treatment of the skin under which the protozoa is lurking with a liquid nitrogen spray. This application of ultra cold kills the parasites at that locality, but no one can guarantee that there aren't more lurking nearby ready to form the typical ulcerating sores at any time.
An anti-protozoan drug would be very welcome to all leishmaniasis sufferers.
Regarding the picture: It's very tragic that child has to be infected with that disease.
Stem cells help broken bones heal Click on the source's name, i.e. Wash. Times, for the rest of the story.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Bill Gates horning in on Jimmy Carter's game.
Yes those beautiful innocent brown eyes.
Makes ya wonder what breathing and eating disorders the disfigurment has caused to further the burden.
I was listening to the Glenn Beck show about Cali public schools vacinating 11yr old girls for a STD virus.
Really sad that there is not a simple vaccine for a viral carrying deadly sand fly bite.
If our troops are open to these bites and symptoms can be dormant I wonder how many will be back in the states before getting ill and the way health care is it may not dawn on State side Drs. or practitioners what illness is.
Also I am wondering how long untill sandflies show up in other parts of the world due to global travel.
The PNW coast in areas is considered a rain forrest and we have had some really warm winters (wearing shorts at Christmas warm) in the past 10 yrs.
I bet a sandfly could live here if conditions were right.
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