Unitaid invests in better, safer and simpler treatments and preventive therapy for multidrug-resistant TB in children

Geneva – Stellenbosch University and Unitaid have signed a US$ 18.9 million grant agreement to develop child-friendly treatments and preventive therapy against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

Developing and evaluating child-friendly treatments and assessing regimens to stop the disease in its tracks before it develops into active disease are expected to go a long way in reducing the burden of this dangerous form of TB.

“This project holds great promise in the fight against superbugs and is critical if we are to protect the future of thousands of children exposed to this dangerous form of TB,” said Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora.

More than 95 percent of children with MDR-TB do not currently receive treatment. And those who do, are treated with regimens that are long, bad tasting, toxic, often causing severe side effects, such as irreversible hearing loss, and composed mostly of adult tablets that must be crushed.

Estimates also show that as many as 2 million children are infected with drug-resistant strains of TB bacteria but have not yet progressed to active disease. A lack of high-quality evidence limits access to treatments that could prevent TB disease from developing in most of these children.

Better Evidence and Formulations for Improved MDR-TB Treatment for Children (BENEFIT Kids) project, signed on Friday and running through 2022, will increase access to quality-assured MDR-TB medicines that are adapted for children, who have been neglected in the global response. The project aims to achieve this by:

  • bringing child-friendly formulations for MDR-TB treatment and preventive therapy that taste better, are of appropriate strength and can be given to young children who cannot swallow tablets
  • strengthening evidence on optimal dosing, safety, efficacy, acceptability and costs of these MDR-TB medications for kids, an important step in creating policies for their use
  • shaping the market for these better formulations for kids

“Children have been largely neglected to date in the global response to MDR-TB and they deserve better.  We are excited that, through Unitaid’s investment in this innovative project, Stellenbosch University and its partners can contribute to addressing this inequity by improving access for children to better, more child-friendly MDR-TB treatment and prevention,” said Project Lead Dr. Anthony Garcia-Prats, Stellenbosch University and the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

The project will not only protect thousands of children from this life-threatening disease but also save millions of dollars for health systems by averting treatment costs for active disease.

The project will be implemented in three countries: South Africa, India and the Philippines. Stellenbosch University will work with partners TB Alliance, University of California San Francisco, De La Salle University Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University, BJ Medical College, Uppsala University and Chiang Mai University.

For more information:

The Hummingbird. Unitaid News – September 2019

Unitaid News

The Hummingbird. Unitaid News – August 2019

Unitaid News

Supporting TB patients to access and adhere to treatment

Advanced tests for drug-resistant tuberculosis

Unitaid invests in groundbreaking technologies to help patients succeed in TB treatment

Geneva – The KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation and Unitaid signed a US$ 13.9 million grant agreement on Tuesday to increase the use of smart pillboxes and mobile technology, aiming to help patients adhere to their medicines and raise the world’s plateauing cure rates for TB.

“This project takes a familiar device, the mobile phone, and turns it into an innovative disease-fighting tool,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said. “So many more people will be able to adhere to the long treatment and return to good health with the support of this technology.”

The ASCENT project, starting this month and running through 2022, will pilot three types of devices and create a global market and implementation plan for them. The devices are:

  • pillboxes that send a message to a monitoring clinic every time the patient opens it up to take their medicine.
  • a video application that helps patients film themselves taking their medicine, and then sends the video to the clinic.
  • an application that helps patients send an SMS to the clinic every time they take their dose.

The project will be implemented in five countries: Ethiopia, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania and Ukraine. KNCV will work with partners The Aurum Institute, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and PATH.

One of the difficulties in curing tuberculosis is the long treatment. Patients have to take medicines anywhere from six months to two years. After a few months of treatment, many patients feel better and stop taking their medicine. As a result, the illness returns, and the bacteria gets an opportunity to develop resistance to the tuberculosis drugs.

“KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation is excited and honored to lead the Unitaid-funded ASCENT project,” said Kitty van Weezenbeek, executive director of KNCV. “We look forward to working with national TB programs, patient representatives and our consortium partners to bring digital adherence technology to scale.”

Unitaid is investing in a host of new TB interventions, including:

  • new drug formulations for children who have multidrug-resistant TB
  • diagnosis through gene sequencing, a new technology that can analyze the genes of a patient’s particular tuberculosis bacteria and determine which drugs will work the best against it.

For more information:

Rwanda and Unitaid to collaborate on health innovations including screen-and-treat tools to prevent cervical cancer

Kigali – The Ministry of Health of Rwanda, Unitaid and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) launched a project aimed at preventing cervical cancer in Rwanda at an event led by the Minister of Health Dr. Diane Gashumba.

“Rwanda is a leading early adopter of innovation. Unitaid is delighted to bring affordable and innovative solutions to prevent cervical cancer cases in Rwanda, empowering girls and women to lead healthy lives,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said.

Unitaid recently signed a $33 million grant with CHAI to develop screen-and-treat solutions for preventing cervical cancer in low-resource settings for less than $1. Rwanda is among the first countries where these innovations are being implemented; the project complements Rwanda’s human papillomavirus vaccination efforts that have reached 93% of girls aged 12 years old.

“Cervical cancer can be prevented if caught early. The Government of Rwanda is pleased to join forces with Unitaid in bringing affordable screen-and-treat innovations to girls and women in Rwanda,” Dr. Gashumba said.

Unitaid and Rwanda’s Ministry of Health further signed an agreement to collaborate on better and more affordable health solutions for the people of Rwanda and beyond. The memorandum of understanding positioned Rwanda as a “champion of innovation acceleration in health” and provides a framework for the country to continue to increase access to affordable and effective health innovations that tackle the most pressing public health problems.

The visit to Rwanda also included a meeting with H.E. Mrs. Jeannette Kagame, First Lady of Rwanda and Chairperson of the Imbuto Foundation, where fruitful discussions were held about future collaboration.

Unitaid grants are directly supporting Rwanda’s health landscape through projects inside the country, and indirectly, through many other investments that develop health innovations and create the conditions for them to be widely introduced.

Examples:

  • Unitaid’s project with Innovative Vector Control Consortium is new-generation bed nets and insecticides to Rwanda’s fight against malaria. In 2018 alone, more than 800,000 Rwandans were protected with the new insecticides, including nearly 12,000 pregnant women and 118,000 children under five. Introduced at full scale, the new insecticides could avert more than 2 million cases of malaria in Rwanda between 2020 and 2024.
  • Unitaid’s project with Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation was the first to introduce integrated point-of-care early infant HIV diagnosis into national laboratory networks in Rwanda. The project allowed thousands of HIV-exposed infants to be tested, initiating lifesaving treatment within two days for 98 percent of those who tested positive.
  • Unitaid accelerated access to paediatric TB medicines by helping countries update their treatment policies, promoting demand, and creating incentives for drug companies to develop new products. In 2018, Rwanda began procuring the child-friendly formulations, which are now available in all 30 districts.
  • Unitaid’s investment in the Self Testing for Africa (STAR) project helped shape the first WHO guidelines on HIV self-testing in 2016. Rwanda now includes self-testing in its national guidelines.

For more examples please refer to the following URL: Rwanda impact note

For more information: Priyamvada CHUGH, chughp@unitaid.who.int

Annual report: Unitaid pushes the boundaries of global health innovation

Geneva – Unitaid is pleased to present its latest annual report, which shows the organization deepening and diversifying its work as a conduit, testing ground and refiner of the best global health ideas.

Unitaid’s portfolio reached US$ 1.3 billion in 2019, more than doubling its value in five years. The number of grants rose from 28 in 2014 to a record 48 grants.

“Every hard-earned milestone shows we can transform lives, in record time, by pooling the expertise of the right partners,” Executive Director Lelio Marmora said. “As we enter exciting new areas, we will continue convening governments, industry, international organizations and civil society to support a more strategic, coherent response.”

The number of organizations implementing Unitaid grants continued to climb, with more partners than ever based in the low- and middle-income countries Unitaid serves.

The organization is also cultivating novel kinds of partnerships that infuse its work with fresh ideas and resources. Unitaid’s new relationship with MTV Staying Alive Foundation, for example, is raising awareness of HIV self-testing, prevention and treatment through the popular African television series MTV Shuga. 

Recent work has built on Unitaid’s accomplishments in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS and its co-infections—and tuberculosis and malaria.

New projects focus on averting cervical cancer, a major cause of death for women living with HIV, and fighting malaria with new ways to control mosquitoes.

The past year also witnessed Unitaid’s push into new approaches to bring down the unacceptable, long-static death toll—about 1 million people a year—from diseases that often strike those with advanced HIV disease.

Many Unitaid projects support the fight against superbugs—microbes that are resistant to medicines—as well as malaria-carrying mosquitoes that can no longer be killed by common insecticides.

Covering 2018 to the present, this year’s report uses a colorful, interactive new style to help readers cut quickly to the core of Unitaid’s work.