Cepheid and its parent company Danaher announced today that they are reducing the price of the Xpert MTB/RIF test for TB by 20 percent in high-TB-burden countries from US$9.98 to $7.97 per test. This reduction is a significant step, considering the corporations have refused to reduce the price of this test for over ten years. While … Read more
TB is curable but remains the world’s leading infectious disease killer 12 September 2023, Geneva/New York – Next week, world leaders meet for the second-ever global tuberculosis (TB) High-Level Meeting at the United Nations (UN) in New York, to endorse ambitious commitments to ramp up TB testing, treatment and prevention in light of innovative medical … Read more
MSF calls again on J&J to withdraw or abandon extended patents on lifesaving TB drug as main patent expires in India today, opening door to more affordable generics. Recent deal offering controlled generics access in limited countries does not go far enough. Delhi/Cape Town/Geneva, 18 July, 2023 – As Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) 20-year … Read more
Mumbai, 23 March 2023 – Today, the 2019 patent challenge by two tuberculosis (TB) survivors, Nandita Venkatesan and Phumeza Tisile, was successful: the Indian Patent Office rejected the US pharmaceutical corporation Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) attempt to extend its monopoly in India on the TB drug bedaquiline beyond the primary patent’s expiry this July. Médecins … Read more
Delhi, 22 March 2023 – Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on governments and donors today to speed up access to new, shorter, safer and more effective treatments* for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), as well as the diagnostic tests needed to implement the new treatment regimens. MSF joined the World Health Organization (WHO) and other … Read more
Jawahira was referred to the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) tuberculosis (TB) hospital in Kandahar earlier this year from a clinic in Daikundi, central Afghanistan. “I used to visit private clinics, but instead of giving me TB medication, they usually just prescribed me painkillers,” she says. The cost of searching out treatment also took its toll. … Read more
India has the highest burden of both tuberculosis (TB) and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) based on estimates in the WHO Global TB Report 2022. The country accounts for 28 percent of the global TB burden. In its clinic in Mumbai, MSF provides free, comprehensive diagnostics and treatment services to people with severe forms of drug-resistant … Read more
The World Health Organization (WHO) released today the 2022 edition of its Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report, featuring data on the TB response and trends in 215 countries and areas. Among the alarming trends from 2021, there is an increase in the estimated incidence of TB for the first time in two decades, including for the more difficult … Read more
BOSTON/PARIS — Hundreds of patient volunteers from four continents have enrolled in a trial that aims to find safer, shorter, and effective treatments for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), an airborne, infectious disease that has grown resistant to standard medications. A group of scientists and clinicians led by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Partners In Health (PIH), and Interactive … Read more
Geneva – The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released new rapid guidance recommending that children of all ages with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) have access to all-oral treatment using the drugs bedaquiline and/or delamanid. However, adopting these new recommendations in high TB burden countries requires access to the paediatric formulations of bedaquiline (produced by Johnson & Johnson) … Read more