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Institute for OneWorld Health Offers Global Health Experts for Commentary on Timely Healthcare Topics

Posted on: Wednesday, 2 November 2005, 09:01 CST

Institute for OneWorld Health:

WHAT Global health will be headlining the news beginning the first week of November. From a national public television series, titled Rx for Survival, to an international Global Health Summit, several prominent public health organizations are encouraging Americans to learn more about and seek out solutions to global health problems. The Institute for OneWorld Health, the first U.S. nonprofit pharmaceutical company, is pursuing a mission of developing safe, effective, affordable new medicines for diseases affecting people in the developing world. In five years, OneWorld Health has completed a clinical trial for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in India, received orphan drug status from the FDA for its drug, paromomycin, to treat VL, and made plans to submit paromomycin for approval with the Indian government

. These are the diseases targeted by OneWorld Health's pipeline: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), also known as kala azar, is fatal if left untreated. Of the 500,000 new cases of VL occurring annually, 90 percent are in five countries: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Brazil and the Sudan. Diarrheal diseases account for approximately 2 million deaths annually in children under the age of 5. Disease and death caused by diarrhea is a worldwide problem, but is especially prevalent in developing countries. Malaria causes nearly 600 million new infections, more than 300 million acute illnesses and up to 3 million deaths annually. Malaria is a disease of poverty and is endemic in nearly 100 countries worldwide, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, where 90 percent of deaths occur, mostly among young children. Chagas disease infects an estimated 10-14 million people within the 19 endemic countries of Central and South America. And, some 100 million people (about 25 percent of the population of Latin America) are reportedly at risk of acquiring Chagas disease. More information is available at www.oneworldhealth.org. WHEN Interviews can be arranged as requested.

Source: Business Wire

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