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'Eflornithine, the only drug that offers a safe, effective cure for end-stage sleeping sickness, has been out of production since 1995. That was when Aventis - the company who discovered it while looking for a cancer cure - stopped manufacture. Despite its potency against sleeping sickness, and the fact that it was the only effective cure left, Aventis argued that the economics didn't justify continued production.
...
'Early this year, US supporters alerted us to a six-page advertisement in Cosmopolitan magazine, which gushed that, "Women everywhere share one common concern. Looking good is a priority. Vaniqa (Eflornithine HCl) speaks to women of all ages and ethnicities and may offer a turning point - an about face - for managing unwanted facial hair."
'Although it wasn't economic to produce eflornithine for 500,000 Africans infected with sleeping sickness, there were definitely dollars to be made from American women who wanted to "worry less about plucking, and more about ...ahem... getting close." American drug company Bristol-Myers-Squibb, seized the opportunity after discovering, coincidentally, that eflornithine not only killed sleeping sickness parasites in the human brain, but also weakened facial hair growth so that waxing, plucking and shaving could be done less often.
'When the face-cream story became known, BMS and Aventis - at risk of a PR backlash - agreed to donate a 5-year supply of eflornithine injections, as well as bulk raw material to allow the WHO to develop a cheaper, more easily administered oral form of the drug. Negotiations to hammer out an affordable price for subsequent production of the drug are still continuing and the drug companies are also being asked to provide support for sleeping sickness programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa.
...
'Left untreated, sleeping sickness patients will die within a few weeks or, if they're lucky, a few years. The disease has two stages. At first the parasite multiplies in the bloodstream but as the disease progresses, it invades the brain, driving the victims mad before killing them. In the absence of eflornithine, the only treatment is melarsoprol, an arsenic derivative from 1949 which kills the sleeping sickness parasite but also kills many patients - up to one in ten. Melarsoprol isn't just deadly, it also requires repeated and excruciatingly painful injections. More troubling are reports from MSF doctors in the field that up to 30% of sleeping sickness parasites in Uganda and Sudan are now resistant to melarsoprol.'
I have no words.
...
'Early this year, US supporters alerted us to a six-page advertisement in Cosmopolitan magazine, which gushed that, "Women everywhere share one common concern. Looking good is a priority. Vaniqa (Eflornithine HCl) speaks to women of all ages and ethnicities and may offer a turning point - an about face - for managing unwanted facial hair."
'Although it wasn't economic to produce eflornithine for 500,000 Africans infected with sleeping sickness, there were definitely dollars to be made from American women who wanted to "worry less about plucking, and more about ...ahem... getting close." American drug company Bristol-Myers-Squibb, seized the opportunity after discovering, coincidentally, that eflornithine not only killed sleeping sickness parasites in the human brain, but also weakened facial hair growth so that waxing, plucking and shaving could be done less often.
'When the face-cream story became known, BMS and Aventis - at risk of a PR backlash - agreed to donate a 5-year supply of eflornithine injections, as well as bulk raw material to allow the WHO to develop a cheaper, more easily administered oral form of the drug. Negotiations to hammer out an affordable price for subsequent production of the drug are still continuing and the drug companies are also being asked to provide support for sleeping sickness programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa.
...
'Left untreated, sleeping sickness patients will die within a few weeks or, if they're lucky, a few years. The disease has two stages. At first the parasite multiplies in the bloodstream but as the disease progresses, it invades the brain, driving the victims mad before killing them. In the absence of eflornithine, the only treatment is melarsoprol, an arsenic derivative from 1949 which kills the sleeping sickness parasite but also kills many patients - up to one in ten. Melarsoprol isn't just deadly, it also requires repeated and excruciatingly painful injections. More troubling are reports from MSF doctors in the field that up to 30% of sleeping sickness parasites in Uganda and Sudan are now resistant to melarsoprol.'
I have no words.
