Can Pharmaceuticals Save the Third World?

[General Ludd]

Re: Re: Can Pharmaceuticals Save the Third World?

Originally posted by Adam Smith
it seems a bit difficult to imagine a treatment much cheaper than that.

Is that really that hard for you to imagine something free of cost?

[The Mad Viking]

I found the same price, $1 per course of treatment. Pretty cheap, even where the GPP/Capita is $3000.

One of the big problems is that people aren't very mobile, so they need to be able to get their meds in their community - from the local chemist.

How about a paper audit trail for all pharmacists to prove they obtained the meds from one of the 3 or so approved manufacturers? Then, random sampling of the pharmacists, with harsh penalties for black market dealers.

[Colonâ„¢]

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=24&story_id=25267&name=Belgian+firm+unveils+%27miracle%27+malaria+cure

Belgian firm unveils 'miracle' malaria cure

11 November 2005

BRUSSELS — Belgian pharmaceutical firm Dafra Pharma has developed a medicine it claims can easily cure malaria sufferers.

The Turnhout-based company said the drug — based on a Chinese medicinal herb — was a medical breakthrough because infected patients can be cured in one day.

Moreover, the patient no longer has to be admitted to hospital. Current treatment methods take much longer and a far more complicated, broadcaster VRT reported.

The product is also very cheap, priced at just EUR 1 or 50 euro cents for child doses. It is thus ideal for the African market, where the highest number of malaria victims is recorded.

Dafra Pharma is currently compiling
documentation to allow for the export of the drug. In 2006, the company hopes to release the medicine on the African market.

Some 1.5 million people die from malaria each year. In Africa, official estimates suggest a child under five years of age dies every 30 seconds from malaria.

Mounting resistance to existing treatments and problems associated with post-treatment relapses have rendered more conventional therapies increasingly ineffective.

Dafra Pharma's new medicine will be unveiled on 14 November at the Multilateral Initiative for Malaria (MIM) Congress in Yaounde, Cameroon, which some 2,000 scientists will attend, Yahoo news reported.

[Copyright Expatica News 2005]

[Az]

Experts have discovered counterfeiters in South East Asia are producing dilute fake versions of the drugs - raising the risk of resistance.

Death Penalty

[Arrian]

Is that really that hard for you to imagine something free of cost?

NOTHING man-made is free of cost. Somebody, somewhere, must spend time making it. It costs something to create. Someone must pay that cost. Is that difficult for you to understand?

-Arrian

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Arrian


NOTHING man-made is free of cost. Somebody, somewhere, must spend time making it. It costs something to create. Someone must pay that cost. Is that difficult for you to understand?

-Arrian

We aren't talking about a vague world market entity sort of someone, but a specific sort of someone who needs medication and lives on less than a dollar a day. Is that difficult for you to understand?

[Arrian]

I understand it just fine. That the person needs something and they're poor does not change anything w/regard to the cost of producing said needed thing. Thus, in order for the good (the drug) to be free for the person who needs it and is poor, someone else must absorb the cost. I assume you think that the pharma companies should pay, or perhaps 1st world governments? In the end *someone* is going to pay for it.

-Arrian

[MrFun]

Pharmaceutical corporations have the best interest of the poor, downtrodden, Third World people at heart . . . . . . .










no really, they do, honest!!

[Kuciwalker]

The argument is more along the lines of "pharmaceutical corporations' interests are aligned with those of the third world" in this case. Of course, don't let me interrupt your tilting at strawmen.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Of course, don't let me interrupt your tilting at strawmen.

thanks

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I found the same price, $1 per course of treatment. Pretty cheap, even where the GPP/Capita is $3000.

The problem is that most malaria-infected countries can't even dream of a GPP/Capita of $3000. Many (most?) African countries have a GDP/Capita of less than $300. So there's some rough equivalence between $1 in, say, Sierra Leone, and $200 in the U.S., a country with 200 times Sierra Leone's GDP/Capita. I really don't understand how to compare those differences at the level of ordinary peoples' lives, but they do seem daunting.

[Kuciwalker]

That's $200, not $2,000.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
That's $200, not $2,000.

Oops. Corrected.

[Adam Smith]

Rufus:

There are a few reasons why I'm not convinced the price of the drug is a huge burden in third world countires.

First, the counterfeiting problem, in this instance, is in Southeast Asia. These countries likely have larger per capita income than bottom of the barrel African countries (though there are several African countires with pretty low per capita income).

Second, I have not seen any indication of how frequently people take this drug. Once a year? Probably not much of a problem. Once a week? Likely a problem.

Third, and most importantly, while the drug may be expensive to an individual, it is still pretty cheap from a UN or NGO's perspective. What UN agency or NGO wouldn't jump at the chance to fund a program that would wipe out or control malaria at $0.35 to $1.00 per course of treatment?

PS: I would like to read the New Yorker article. Do you have a link, cite, or summary? Thanks.

Colon:

Better living thru chemistry.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

AS:

Article's not on line, but here's a link to the New Yorker's press release:

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/press/051024pr_press_releases

October 24 issue, so probably not on the newsstands anymore, but well worth popping down to your local library and checking out.

Also, I'm not disputing your economics; I just honestly can't imagine what $1 really means in a 3rd-world country, in spite of the fact that I live in one. I find those levels of poverty literally unimagineable, even though I don't have to imagine it anymore. But you're right about how cheap this would be for NGO's and International Organizations; incidently, that's the same point Gates makes about why he chose to focus Gates Foundation efforts on malaria.