Monday, December 17, 2007
Rapid Impact Packages
1. Onchocerciasis (River Blindness) - Ivermectin - currently being donated by Merck. Cost 0 cents.
2. STH (Soil Transmitted Hemlminthiasis - includes ascariasis, trichuriasis and hook worm infestation)- Albendazole- GSK - 2 cents.
3. Trachoma - Azithromycin- Pfizer - o cents.
4. Lymphatic filariasis- Ivermectin- Merck - 0 cents
5. Schistosomiasis - Praziquantel- Med Pharm- 8 cents.
This 50 cents still proves to be a lot for many third world countries, especially those with poor governance and ongoing civil and military conflicts. The PUSH fund has been established to try and overcome this deficit. Let us combine to make this a success.
Kala Azar
Sunder, S et al. N Engl J Med 2007;356:2571-81 (www.nejm.org)
Background Visceral leishmaniasis (kala-azar) affects large, rural, resource-poor populations in South Asia, Africa, and Brazil. Safe, effective, and affordable new therapies are needed. We conducted a randomized, controlled, phase 3 open-label study comparing paromomycin, an aminoglycoside, with amphotericin B, the present standard of care in Bihar, India.
Methods In four treatment centers for visceral leishmaniasis, 667 patients between 5 and 55 years of age who were negative for the human immunodeficiency virus and had parasitologically confirmed visceral leishmaniasis were randomly assigned in a 3:1 ratio to receive paromomycin (502 patients) at a dose of 11 mg per kilogram of body weight intramuscularly daily for 21 days or amphotericin B (165 patients) at a dose of 1 mg per kilogram intravenously every other day for 30 days. Final cure was assessed 6 months after the end of treatment; safety assessments included daily clinical evaluations and weekly laboratory and audiometric evaluations. Noninferiority testing was used to compare 6-month cure rates, with a chosen margin of noninferiority of 10 percentage points.
Results Paromomycin was shown to be noninferior to amphotericin B (final cure rate, 94.6% vs. 98.8%; difference, 4.2 percentage points; upper bound of the 97.5% confidence interval, 6.9; P<0.001). Mortality rates in the two groups were less than 1%. Adverse events, which were more common among patients receiving paromomycin than among those receiving amphotericin B (6% vs. 2%, P=0.02), included transient elevation of aspartate aminotransferase levels (>3 times the upper limit of the normal range); transient reversible ototoxicity (2% vs. 0, P=0.20); and injection-site pain (55% vs. 0, P<0.001);> B, as compared with those receiving paromomycin, nephrotoxicity (4% vs. 0, P<0.001),> 0, P<0.001),>