It's a Hindi word that means "Black Death". Just imagine that you feel a small nip at your leg one hot day, smack at the area, and then bring your hand back up to reveal a tiny sand fly. Then starts the chills, then the fever, and then you start developing black lesions all over your body. You know you need to see a doctor before the disease claims your life, and thus, you quickly begin hunting for a doctor with medication. However, they can't help you...hell, you notice they can barely help themselves if their small, outdated lab is any indication. Others laugh at your misfortune, because unless you are rich and able to go elsewhere, you are dead.
Because don't forget, you're in a third-world country.
"The people who are affected by the problem are poor. That's why we call it a neglected problem," said Dr. Willy Tonui of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, or KEMRI, in Nairobi. "Since you're dealing with a poor population, they won't be able to purchase the drug."
With the United Nations' 192-member World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva, the governments of Kenya and Brazil have sent a resolution asking the panel to urge governments to set drug research priorities based on disease burden. According to the U.N., less than 10 percent of investment in health research goes to diseases that affect 90 percent of the world.
"Developing countries have the capacity to provide new solutions for old diseases, but every day we see how difficult it is to get support for research and development into diseases that affect the poor and for which there is no profitable market," said Dr. Davy Koech, KEMRI's CEO.
...
Most cases occur in Sudan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Brazil.
But unlike treatments for scourges such as AIDS and heart disease, there have been precious few advances in kala azar drugs in nearly two decades. The problem, critics say, is that there's little financial incentive to develop drugs for people who will never be able to pay for them.
Medicins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, says the disease killed a third of the population in Sudan's Western Upper Nile region between 1990 and 1994 -- 100,000 of 300,000 people. The organization says it is a tragedy comparable to the bubonic plague of medieval times.
Now, we're not without our own medication nightmare here in the US, but generally, we lucky to have doctors willing to give us free samples...and well, we're also lucky to live in a place where there aren't that many cases of the Black Death (thanks to modern technology).
Sadly, this isn't the only case where the pharmaceutical companies refuse to help because they won't profit.
Tags: [Kala Azar], [Black Death], [Kenya Medical Research Institute], [World Health Assembly], [Doctors Without Borders], [little financial incentive to develop drugs for people who will never be able to pay for them]
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