NOVARTIS DEVELOPING NEW MALARIA DRUG

Nov 05, 2014 William Adoyo Health, Kisumu, National, News, Regional, World 0

Novartis Developing New Malaria Drug

Novartis, the world’s leading provider of Artemisinin-based combination therapies against malaria has announced developments of the next generation of medicines for malaria.

Novartis East Africa Head Mo Metwally says they have a new malaria compound that will enable them to develop new malaria medicine. Metwally says they are optimistic the new innovation will reach phase 2 clinical development in 20 years to come.

He says it remains Novartis commitment to offer contributions geared towards lowering the burden of malaria in the country and across the East Africa community

Speaking in Seme Sub-county during the delivery of 200,000 malaria treatments for children in the country, Metwally said they have launched ‘Familia Nawiri’, a rural medicines access program in the country.

He added that the program will expand access to essential medicines in rural Kenya as well as improving on health education.

James Sang, program officer Malaria Control Unit in the Ministry of Health says malaria elimination progress is promising in Kenya and they will continue to do more research that will help kick malaria out of Kenya completely.

He says recent statistics indicate that the usage in the region is below par with only 38 percent using the nets out of the population that have received the nets.

Seme sub-county deputy county commissioner Gilbert Kitiyo on his part concurred that the usage of nets is wanting and called for more awareness creation.

Kitiyo says in most homesteads, mosquito nets are used to fence gardens and sometimes in fishing.

Novartis’ Malaria Initiative is focused on improving access to treatment that will help improve communities lives in malaria-endemic countries deliver better in health care and investing in research and development into the next generation of antimalarial.

Over the past decade, the initiative has become one of the largest access-to-medicine programs in the health care industry, measured by the number of patients has reached annually.

The malaria research company that started since 2001, working with a range of organizations, have provided more than 600 million treatments for adults and children, without profit, to more than 60 malaria-endemic countries, contributing to a significant reduction of the death toll from malaria, mostly infants and children.

Novartis Developing New Malaria Drug to help mothers protect their babies from Malaria

Malaria Key Facts

Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes.
In 2012, malaria caused an estimated 627 000 deaths (with an uncertainty range of 473 000 to 789 000), mostly among African children.
Malaria is preventable and curable.
Increased malaria prevention and control measures are dramatically reducing the malaria burden in many places.
Non-immune travellers from malaria-free areas are very vulnerable to the disease when they get infected.

Malaria Key Facts courtesy of World Health Organization.