New tests and treatments to prevent Chagas disease in newborns

Improving outcomes for women and children – Unitaid publishes its RMNCH Thematic Narrative

Geneva – Despite the progress in decreasing the global Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Health (RMNCH) burden over the last 30 years, the SDG targets[1] will not be achieved on the current trajectory.

In 2017 almost 300,000 women died as a result of pregnancy or childbirth; and an estimated 2.5 million newborns died in the first month –  50% of all deaths of children under five.

Building on the success of recent integrated approaches to care – including in the management of childhood fever, prevention and screening of cervical cancer, and elimination of congenital infection in Chagas disease – Unitaid is expanding the scope of its activities in RMNCH. This expansion complements a rich existing portfolio of HIV, TB and malaria grants that target maternal and newborn health.

Published to mark International Women’s Day 2021, this RMNCH Thematic Narrative provides an update on the global landscape of RMNCH, highlighting commodity access challenges and identifying potential areas where Unitaid investment could deliver highest impact.

The Narrative highlights how Unitaid’s role in catalyzing innovation for scale-up could be effectively applied to help drive uptake of promising innovations in low- and middle income countries, and address key drivers of the RMNCH burden.

A number of opportunities were identified, including in the areas of diagnostics for pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, as well as the prevention and management of post-partum haemorrhage. These were recently endorsed by Unitaid’s Executive Board under the Area for Intervention, “New tools for reducing maternal mortality.”

As a result, Unitaid launched a new Call for Proposals in January 2021 – Better tools to prevent and treat postpartum hemorrhage.

The call is open until April 7th and is focused on catalyzing early adoption of new and recently-recommended drugs for postpartum hemorrhage in high-burden countries, as well as advancing late-stage development of new postpartum hemorrhage drug formulations and/or drug delivery methods.

More information can be found here

[1] SDG 3 “Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages”

3.1 By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100 000 live births.

3.2 By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1000 live births.

Media contact: Charlotte Baker | +44 7904 460 181 | bakerc@unitaid.who.int

Unitaid looks to invest in better tools to prevent and treat postpartum haemorrhage

Geneva – Unitaid is pleased to announce a new call for proposals in the area of tools for reducing maternal mortality.

Despite a significant reduction in the number of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth over the last 30 years, global progress has stalled. There were almost 300,000 preventable maternal deaths in 2017, most of which occurred in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).

A coordinated, integrated effort, with emphasis on expanded access to innovative health interventions is needed to reach the 2030 SDG targets and address the unacceptably high number of global maternal deaths.

Under this call, Unitaid is soliciting proposals for interventions aimed at accelerating the adoption and scale-up of innovations to reduce maternal mortality from postpartum haemorrhage (PPH).

Projects that fall under the scope of this call are those that accelerate the introduction of new or newly recommended drugs for PPH, and also push forward the late-stage development of new formulations for the prevention and treatment of PPH.

Applicants are invited to submit proposals for one or both areas of intervention.

The closing date for receipt of full proposals is Wednesday 7th April at 1200 (noon) CET.

About Unitaid calls for proposals

Through calls for proposals, Unitaid finds partners best qualified to put key innovations into practice. A review committee of independent experts in global health helps choose the best proposals to fund through a competitive selection process. Partners receive grants from us to fast-track access and reduce the costs of more effective medicines, technologies and systems. In this way, Unitaid’s investments establish the viability of health innovations, allowing partner organisations to make them widely available.

Media contact: Charlotte Baker | +44 7904 460 181 | bakerc@unitaid.who.int

Strategy development launched and new areas for intervention agreed at 37th meeting of Unitaid’s Executive Board

Geneva – Unitaid will expand its portfolio to target challenges in reducing maternal mortality and tools for detecting tuberculosis, as a result of decisions taken at the 37th meeting of its Executive Board.

Held virtually from the 9th to 10th December 2020, the meeting also saw Unitaid launch the development of its new strategy for 2022-26, agree its budget for 2021 and invite Japan to join the Executive Board.

The Board has approved an external review as an important step towards the development of Unitaid’s next strategy. As a key component of this process, extensive stakeholder engagement will be undertaken throughout 2021, to gain the thoughts and inputs of Unitaid’s partners, grant implementers and civil society groups.

The new areas for intervention agreed by the Board focus on challenges that are deeply relevant to Unitaid’s core work, namely reducing the number of women who die in pregnancy or childbirth, and increasing the detection of TB.

Almost 300,000 women died as a result of pregnancy or childbirth in 2017, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. Unitaid sees great potential in new tools to treat post-partum haemorrhage and pre-eclampsia in particular, leveraging our comparative advantage and strong track record in related areas.

Tuberculosis detection is recognised as a high-impact area for intervention which could play a significant role in advancing both the WHO End TB strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals. Without substantial investment in detection tools, TB will continue to be a leading cause of death in many low- and middle-income countries and among the most vulnerable. Unitaid is pleased to take this opportunity to examine the potential impact of innovations, particularly in the areas of non-sputum based testing and integrated diagnostic solutions, while leveraging the learnings from COVID-19.

Unitaid’s Executive Board Chair Marisol Touraine said: “I am proud that Unitaid’s Executive Board showed ambition and openness. This meeting was extremely productive and strategic. We were able to express a clear and strategic vision for Unitaid to build on its historic ground-breaking work, as well as areas such as maternal and child health, while maintaining its vital role in the fight against COVID-19. This meeting was also an exciting moment as we expanded our Executive Board for the first time in many years by creating a temporary board seat and welcoming Japan, as well as taking the first steps towards developing the new strategy for 2022-26.”

Unitaid’s Executive Director Philippe Duneton said: “It is fantastic to see the board approve future investments in the fields of maternal health and TB detection, which are key elements of Unitaid’s mandate. It is clear that innovation has a vital role to play in bringing down the number of deaths of women during childbirth and pregnancy.  Improving how TB is detected, and identifying cases of TB more quickly and easily is even more important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Media contact:  

Unitaid supports the WHO’s cervical cancer elimination strategy launch

Geneva – Unitaid is delighted to give its support to today’s launch of the WHO’s Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer – the first time the world has ever committed to eliminating a cancer.

Unitaid’s chair Marisol Touraine has come together with WHO Director General Dr Tedros, Dr Princess Nono Simelela, the First Ladies of Rwanda and South Africa and many others to get behind this ambitious, life-saving strategy.

The facts are sobering. Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer affecting women, killing more than 300,000 every year. Nine out of ten women who die from cervical cancer are from low- and middle-income countries, and women living with HIV are six times more likely to develop cervical cancer.

When the WHO first made a rallying call to action in 2018, Unitaid mobilised quickly to invest more than US$60 million with the clear goal of making life-changing improvements in the screening and treatment of women with cervical cancer – particularly targeting those in high-burden countries who do not have access to vaccination.

Unitaid is now the largest funder of innovative tools to find and treat precancerous lesions in women living in low-resource settings. These investments have laid a firm foundation for the elimination strategy, and Unitaid remains on-target to reach one million women within three years, with an estimated 100,000 additional lives saved over eight years.

Our partnerships with CHAI, Expertise France, Jhpiego and UICC focus on introducing innovation and making it accessible and affordable. Many of the successful techniques for reducing cervical cancer in high-income countries are difficult to transfer over to low-and-middle income countries, so Unitaid’s fresh and targeted approach has transformational potential.

We have already made significant progress towards our ambitious goal of delivering screening and treatment for less than US$1 per woman. Thermal Ablation devices are now available for less than US$900, representing an average price reduction of 50%.

With these more affordable devices, treating one woman will become not only faster (1-2 minutes versus 15 minutes) but also easier, thanks to the use of a battery-operated handheld device, rather than a heavy container that requires compressed gas. Overall, it is almost ten times cheaper than cryotherapy, the previously-used treatment.

Our investments have also resulted in HPV testing prices coming down by a third, which will give more women access to screening and help embed this in national government’s health systems in a sustainable way.

Chair of Unitaid’s Executive Board, Marisol Touraine said: “No woman or girl – irrespective of where they are born or where they live – should fall prey to cervical cancer. We cannot see cervical cancer as a death sentence because it is one of the most preventable and treatable cancers. I call on all countries, organisations and partners to make our objectives a reality by fully engaging to concretely implement these solutions for the most vulnerable countries.”

Our projects:

Media contact: Charlotte Baker | +44 7904 460 181 | bakerc@unitaid.who.int

Innovative delivery systems for paediatric medicines technology landscape

The Hummingbird. Unitaid News – October 2020

Unitaid News, October 2020: Global health beyond COVID-19

Unitaid greets World Chagas Disease Day with new analysis, new plans

Geneva – Unitaid marked the first World Chagas Disease Day with the release of a comprehensive report on how to better confront the potentially deadly parasitic infection that strikes hardest among Latin America’s poor and marginalized.

It was on this date in 1909 that a Brazilian doctor, Carlos Chagas, diagnosed the first case of what was to be called Chagas disease.

Unitaid is also developing an initiative to help eliminate mother-to-child transmission of Chagas disease as part of its mandate to improve maternal, newborn and child health.

“Unitaid was created to speed equitable access to innovative health solutions, and we are thrilled to join global efforts against this insidious disease,” Unitaid Executive Director a.i. Philippe Duneton said. “Access to simpler and more affordable test and treat tools will help end the suffering Chagas causes, and cut costs for families and health systems.”

Unitaid’s work aligns with global health plans that call for eliminating Chagas disease as a public health problem by 2030.  Currently, only an estimated 7 percent of people with Chagas disease get diagnosed, and only 1 percent receive effective treatment.

Unitaid’s just-released report, Technology and Market Landscape for Chagas Disease, maps out the diagnostics and treatments that are in use now and identifies innovations that could improve upon them. The report also examines market barriers that could be removed to make way for better tests and treatments.

Unitaid’s upcoming investment to tackle mother-to-child transmission seeks to address some of these challenges, notably the lack of diagnostic tools and medicines in primary health care clinics. At least two million women of child-bearing potential are chronically infected with ‘Trypanosoma cruzi’, but active screening and optimal treatment can prevent transmission to their babies. In addition, early detection of infection in infants can greatly reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths related to Chagas disease.

Transmitted by the blood-sucking triatomine bug, Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis), slowly brings on cardiac, neurological and digestive problems. Up to 7 million people are thought to be infected with it, 75 million people are considered to be at risk of infection and about 10,000 die from it annually. In Brazil, Chagas disease causes more deaths than any other parasitic disease, including malaria.

In the last decades, the disease has moved from the countryside to urban settings, and is now found outside the borders of the 21 Latin American countries where it is endemic. Cases now appear in places such as the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia.

Related:

For more information: Gloria Vinyoles | 41 79 121 18 65 | vinyolesg@unitaid.who.int