—New Video Builds Momentum in Global Effort to End Neglected Tropical Diseases by 2020
In a hard-hitting new video released in Washington D.C. recently, celebrities from around the world called for support in the global effort to control and eliminate seven diseases that plague more than 1 billion people around the world, including 500 million children. In the video, international actors and musicians witness the devastation neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) cause and encourage their fans to be part of the solution. The video is part of the END7 campaign, the first global public awareness initiative dedicated to controlling and eliminating the seven most prevalent NTDs by 2020.
Emily Blunt (“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” “Devil Wears Prada”); Eddie Redmayne (“Les Miserables,” “My Week with Marilyn”); Tom Felton (“Harry Potter” series); Yvonne Chaka Chaka (South African pop star); Tom Hollander (“Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Pride and Prejudice”); and Priyanka Chopra (leading Bollywood actress and international recording artist) are featured in the video. These celebrities join a growing cast of supporters including Katy Perry, Ewan McGregor, Alyssa Milano, Norah Jones, Rosanna Cash, Paula Abdul and Stella McCartney to help raise public awareness about NTDs.
“Until recently, I didn’t even know these diseases existed,” said actress Emily Blunt. “The serious disabilities and suffering they inflict on the world’s poorest people is heart-wrenching. But I was inspired to join the END7 campaign because, for once, the solution is simple and available now. And the cost for treatment is so low that almost anyone can make a big difference by giving just a few cents.”
END7 relies heavily on individuals spreading the word and getting involved through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It aims to raise the public awareness and funding required to cover the cost of distributing medicine and setting up treatment programs for NTDs. END7 is encouraging supporters to sign a pledge to inspire global policy leaders and philanthropists to take action and help end these diseases by 2020.
It costs approximately 50 cents to treat one person against the seven most common NTDs for an entire year. Pharmaceutical companies have donated billions of pills to treat these diseases, and many programs use existing infrastructure, such as schools and community centers, as distribution points, making NTD treatment one of most cost-effective public health initiatives available today.
The seven most common NTDs—hookworm, ascariasis (roundworm), trichuriasis (whipworm), schistosomiasis (snail fever), lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), onchocerciasis (river blindness) and trachoma—infect more than one in six people worldwide, including more than 500 million children. They cause blindness, massive swelling in appendages and limbs, severe malnutrition and anemia. NTDs prevent children from growing and learning. They reduce adults’ economic productivity and ability to care for their families, keeping communities trapped in a cycle of poverty and disease.
“In India alone, nearly 700 million people are at risk for elephantiasis and more than 200 million children are at risk for worm infections,” said Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra. “Through the END7 campaign, we can offer a solution that will change the lives of millions of people living in poverty in Asia and around the world. I am proud to be a part of the global effort to end these diseases.”
The END7 campaign was launched in 2012 by the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, an initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. Wunderman UK leads the creative direction for the campaign, which includes this latest video along with the campaign’s website, Facebook hub and the previously released “Mission in a Minute” video.
“We are building a movement that allows nearly everyone to play a part in making these diseases history,” said Dr. Neeraj Mistry, managing director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases. “Since last January’s London Declaration, we have seen a significant increase in support for NTD control and elimination among global leaders. What we need now is for the general public to get involved in our cause.”
To watch the video, entitled END7: How to Shock a Celebrity, and learn more about the END7 campaign, visit http://www.end7.org.
When the Trokosi Goon-Squad collaborates with the pathologically incurable Wallet Watch Magazine, what one gets is a farcical media fare of quixotic proportions. This is exactly the contents of an article which was published in the opinions column of the MyJoyOnline.com web edition of April 4, 2013.
Sensationally captioned “NPP Supreme Court Petition Will Fail – EIU Report,” and sourced to the Trokosi flagship newspaper The Informer, the arch-detractors of the 2012 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) risibly sought to accord credibility to a largely, predictably fabricated piece of guff parading as a media scoop, in which the editors and publishers of the Trokosi equivalent of the New York Times claimed that the internationally reputed London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) had predicted the certain failure of the NPP petition against the validity of Election 2012 which is currently before the Atuguba-led panel of Supreme Court judges.
The all-too-Trokosi problem here, though, is that The Informer’s editors and publishers appear to have been either too high on some narcotic contraband, or simply too daft and crassly illiterate to have clearly recognized the fact that absolutely no reputable publication exists on the British Isles that goes by the name of “Economic Intelligence Unit.” There, however, exists the globally renowned Economist Intelligence Unit. And so maybe the editors and publishers of Wallet Watch Magazine and The Informer take their Ghanaian readers for dupes.
Anyway, what I am drawing attention to here is that if both the so-called Africawatch Magazine and its Trokosi mercenary collaborator, The Informer, cannot seem to get such a basic fact as the media source of their anti-NPP muck accurate, then how can they be trusted by media-savvy Ghanaians to regale them with reportorially objective media fare or content? You see, there is a rather cheap trick here that only the most sophisticated consumers of media fare can readily appreciate and promptly expose. And it is as follows: You see, both the Wallet Watch Magazine and the Trokosi Times’ editors are able to get away with such criminal mendacity because the names Economic Intelligence Unit and Economist Intelligence Unit, legally speaking, are not one and the same.
In short, having adequately protected themselves against the possibility of a lawsuit, the Wallet Watch Magazine editor and his Trokosi Times editorial companion are able to fabricate their most idiotic piece of turd, or human waste, without risking any legal action. What is also amusing about the article is the fact that it is wholly based on the purportedly intercepted e-mail missives of an allegedly anonymous cousin of Nana Akufo-Addo’s. In legal parlance, this is called hearsay; but in reality, the purported e-mail missives are wholly composed in the flighty and mercenary imagination of the fabricators.
Needless to say, anybody who has followed the shady journalistic career of the editor of Wallet Watch Magazine knows that this unconscionable grub has established an “enviable” notoriety for routinely fabricating slanderous and libelous tirades and accusations against his former benefactors and paymasters, including former President John Agyekum-Kufuor, and now Nana Akufo-Addo. Previous targets of libelous fabrications have included Messrs. Tsikata and Rawlings, for whom the Wallet Watch Magazine editor-publisher once studiously shilled.
In the final analysis, what matters here, more than anything else, is the credibility of the ideological detractor and/or mercenary accuser, just like the Kpegah case against Nana Akufo-Addo, which promises to definitively obliterate any vestige of credibility that the former may be left with presently, once the truth of the accuser’s overriding motivation gets forensically scrutinized by the court.
At this juncture, I don’t even suppose for a split-second that even a psychologically and cognitively challenged miscreant like Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia would half-believe the kind of “Shit-Bomb” farcically, shamelessly, and scandalously and unconscionably offloaded here by the Wallet Watch Magazine editor-publisher and his Trokosi Times collaborators.
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. Department of English Nassau Community College of SUNY Garden City, New York
Finally, Mr. Francis Yaonasu Kpegah, the retired Supreme Court of Ghana judge who has publicly and viciously accused the Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) for Election 2012 of criminally impersonating a slain lawyer for over 42 years, is about to have his wish. And on the latter score, it may also be vividly recalled that Mr. Kpegah claims to be in possession of forensically sustainable evidence backing up his accusation.
Well, on Thursday, April 4, 2013, Mr. Frank Davis, lawyer for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who also doubles as the Greater-Accra Regional President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), informed the general Ghanaian public and the global community at large that he had entered an appearance on behalf of the accused (See “Akufo-Addo Enters Appearance On Justice Kpegah’s Suit” Citifmonline.com/ Ghanaweb.com).
Mr. Davis also indicated that his client has 14 days within which “to either file a defense or bring consequential process” before the court. Well, I am not a lawyer, as most of my readers ought to be well aware of the same by now; and neither have I ever presumed to even play one. Nonetheless, my layman’s critical interpretation of “consequential process” vehemently informs me that the Akufo-Addo camp may be planning to launch a massive defamation lawsuit against Mr. Kpegah the likes of which has never been winessed in nearly 60 years of postcolonial Ghanaian legal and political history and culture.
We have a vivid hint of the foregoing because Mr. Davis has also observed to the general Ghanaian public and the greater global community that the onus, or burden of proof, regarding whether, indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo has been falsely and criminally passing himself off as a lawyer, or legal light, for more than four decades squarely rests with Mr. Kpegah, the accuser.
What is quite curiously fascinating here is that almost every one of his most ardent and prominent accusers is of Anlo-Ewe ethnic descent or affiliation, including, in the recent past, longtime Ghanaian first lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. And when the dastardly attempts to impugn his integrity have not unconscionably targeted Nana Akufo-Addo’s sterling legal career, they have sought to malign his academic resume and institutional attendance record.
The most recent example of the preceding came from Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, the infamous career criminal convict and Oxford University alumnus, who deviously inferred, in the run-up to Election 2012, that Nana Akufo-Addo had left Oxford as an 18-year-old undergraduate student under questionable circumstances.
What the foregoing dangerously reflects is the desperate attempt by key operatives of the Anlo-Ewe/Trokosi wing of the Ewe-dominated National Democratic Congress (the so-called Keta-Sogakope Alliance of Agbeli Kaklo-Chomping Chimps) to prevent Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice from acceding to the presidency, in the event of the highly likely delivery of a Supreme Court verdict roundly invalidating the credibility of Election 2012 and the legitimacy of President John Dramani Mahama, the veritable Anlo-Ewe stooge.
Well, I have said this previously and hereby repeat the same: and it is the fact that the Anlo-Ewe leadership among the rambunctious ranks of the National Democratic Congress, has yet to clearly and publicly explain why it ought not to be charged and/or tagged with being veritably complicit to Messrs. Kojo Tsikata and J. J. Rawlings’ summary abduction and brutal mid-night assassination of the three Akan High Court judges on June 30, 1982.
Not long ago, we learned from some very reliable sources that, indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo had barely escaped a similar fate as the savagely slain judges on that fateful night by sheer stroke of luck. The dauphin of the immortalized Chief Justice Edward Akufo-Addo had flown to the British Isles a day or two before the infamous murders to visit with some friends, associates and relatives.
And so it clearly appears that having epically failed in their cowardly attempt to physically liquidate Nana Akufo-Addo, the Trokosi nationalists are now hell-bent on character-assassinating their arch-nemesis. As to whether they will succeed in having their demonic prayers and long-held wishes answered, remains to be see.
They may, of course, very well achieve their apparently inexorable ambitions on The Road to Kigali, that is, if they make the direly unwise decision of pushing their luck beyond reason. Their quixotic wish of bringing the Ga-people – as cannon-fodder – along for the ride will definitely not succeed: for, needless to say, the Ga(s) and Akan(s) are a siamese twin.
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. Department of English Nassau Community College of SUNY Garden City, New York
My good friends, once again, reality is with us. Two major happenings confirm fears that those in charge of our national affairs are toying with the citizens’ destiny.
1. Government has released money to be paid to all 230 MPs who served in the fifth Parliament of the fourth Republic as ex-gratia. Each is to receive $100,000 out of the total payment of about Gh¢39 million.
MPs who did not return to the House after the 2012 December 7 and 8 elections, took home Gh¢211,000 each, while those who retained their seats got between Gh¢270,000 and Gh¢275,000 each, depending on their status in the House.
2. Government has declined to fully pay the one-year market premium arrears owed to members of UTAG although the lecturers are currently on strike. A meeting between UTAG and the government on today was inconclusive, leading to a reinforcement of the strike.
MY COMMENTS
Clearly, by releasing money to be paid to the former MPs while refusing to satisfy the public sector workers demanding payment of arrears and improvement of working conditions, the government has set itself up for condemnation and physical confrontations with public sector workers. I cringe at what will happen soon.
Apart from the bad timing of this payment, there is everything nauseating about the payment itself at a time when teachers and doctors are agitating for the payment of salaries and allowances that they have worked for but are not being listened to.
What is the justification for paying the former MPs and sidelining the public sector workers whose services sustain the national economy and support life?
Agitations and industrial actions by public sector workers (doctors, teachers at all levels, civil servants, etc.) are rampant, not because of any political machination but because of the worsening of living conditions in the country.
Given the current tense industrial atmosphere, it is inconceivable for the government to pay the former MPs their “ex-gratia” while denying public sector workers their fair share of the national cake.
I have always wondered what specifically these MPs contribute to our national development, which is why I don’t see the need to pay them anything like this “ex-gratia” award. Were they not taking their monthly salaries at the time they were in office?
Now, for the government to pay them this “ex-gratia” (additional money) while denying public sector workers the little top-up that they need every month while in service is the height of wickedness. And the government will pay dearly for it.
While at it, the situation is worsened by senseless comments from beneficiary MPs, some of whom are not even worth anybody’s bother at all. Indeed, they are a public nuisance, to put it mildly.
Misguided comments from them are inflaming passions and setting the stage for what we expect to be a massive agitation at the labour front that will jolt the government. Those comments clearly depict the heartlessness of these beneficiary MPs and anybody in government supporting this ex-gratia nonsense.
Take Maxwell Kofi Jumah, the former NPP MP for Asokwa, for instance, who has asked medical doctors and teachers not to compare themselves with MPs “because MPs are on a higher pedestal compared to the two professions.”
“If you are doctor is the MP your co-equal, if you are teacher is the MP your co-equal,” he asked.
Jumah comes across as petulant and really disgusting for asking Ghanaians to learn to respect MPs and Parliament because it is the same doctors, teachers, and other professionals who become MPs.
As for Kojo Adu-Asare, former Member of Parliament for Adentan Constituency, who has expressed grave displeasure about media reports on the ex-gratia payment to suggest that the MPs don’t fix their own ex-gratia award, he can be dismissed as a shameless opportunist.
But we won’t pardon him for insulting the media as “hypocritical and mischievous” and for accusing them of inciting the public against MPs because they have been paid their end of service benefit. Article 71 of the Constitution, which spells out this ex-gratia entitlement, is itself a problem to be solved.
I am more than convinced that Ghanaian politics is nothing but a goldmine for all manner of people calling themselves politicians, which is why everybody is drifting toward it, doing whatever they can to settle in the groove.
I am saddened by this new development and will not be surprised if the government faces serious confrontations from the labour front. There is every reason to believe that this payment of ex-gratia to these MPs will set off the storm that will shake officialdom.
Having abolished ex-gratia payment to public sector workers, what is the moral justification to retain it for MPs who have contributed NOTHING concrete toward national development? And to imagine that this payment is happening at a time that the labour front is already being rocked by strike actions? There is something basically wrong with this government’s strategy for handling affairs.
As is to be expected, the usual rivalry and effusive bad-mouthing that characterizes the relationship between the MPs in both the NDC and the NPP has suddenly evaporated and the beneficiary MPs from both divides have quickly come together because their interests intersect at this level of ex-gratia payment. These are nothing but greedy, unconscionable, and insensitive leeches.
Elsewhere, something encouraging is happening to mark the huge difference that exists between those who know why they are in office and those who don’t and use their offices to fleece the system. Here is the example:
President Barack Obama will pay back 5 percent of his annual government salary to the U.S. Treasury. It’s a move meant to signal solidarity with federal workers facing furloughs because of automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, the White House said Wednesday. The New York Times first reported Obama’s decision (http://world.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201304/103909.php).
Obama makes $400,000 in presidential pay (though, thanks in part to book royalties, his 2011 tax filings show that his adjusted gross income that year was $789,674). Between now and Oct. 1, the end of the 2013 fiscal year, he will cut monthly checks that will total $20,000, an aide told Yahoo News.
The announcement came one day after the Pentagon revealed that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel would return 14 days’ pay, or roughly $10,750, based on his annual salary of $199,700.
The symbolic move came amid widespread news reports that sequestration —deep, indiscriminate government spending cuts—were hitting Americans’ bottom line and leaving gaps in key services.
Friends, do you see why we in Ghana are suffering because we have put the wrong people in charge of our lives?
My good friends, it is undeniable that nothing comes from nothing. The NPP’s Akufo-Addo is still on our radar screen for a good reason.
One of his claims is that he was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971, after which he moved to Paris (France) to work from 1971–1975 for Coudere Freres (Brothers), a major US law firm. A quick question for him: As a qualified lawyer, why did he work at that law firm as an administrator and not a practising lawyer? Those who knew him as such in France have begun talking. We challenge Akufo-Addo to clear the air that he didn’t practise law at Coudere Freres.
Once we haven’t yet found the missing link in the chain of his background, we won’t stop the search for answers to pertinent, nagging questions. However long the search may be, we are prepared to carry on, guided by the maxim that “Patience moves mountains, but only if you try” (as the Jamaican reggae maestro, Jimmy Cliff, reminds us).
In that vein, we keep the searchlight on Akufo-Addo. Let nobody think that we are doing so just because we hate him or that we are mischievous, fiendish, or idling because we have too much time and too little to do. We are not. We are insistent that the missing link in his background doesn’t bode well for him, especially within the context of his unceasing quest to be given the highest office of the land.
If we are complaining about the leadership crisis facing our country because our leaders lack the requisite aptitude, moral character, and acumen, then, we should be interested in knowing as much as we can about those aspiring to be our leaders. We should not fail to dig deep into matters that can help us know them for what and who they are. So if they enter office and do things anyhow, we can tell why.
We have every reason to ascertain their real nature. That is why this probe into the missing link in Akufo-Addo’s background will not be abandoned just because it hurts some people’s feelings or disorients them. We will press on to know the truth—and it is only the truth that will set someone free!
We are all agreed that Akufo Addo did attend elementary school in Ghana before proceeding to the Lancing College, Sussex, England, in 1961 for his “O” and “A” levels, and returning to Ghana to attend the University of Ghana, Legon, where he earned a BSc Econs in 1967.
Immediately thereafter, Akufo-Addo’s biographical chain cracks because a major link vanishes. There is a void in Akufo-Addo’s life between 1967 and June 1971. His CV doesn’t contain anything to tell us where he was; but we are suddenly given a peek into his professional life, beginning in July 1971.
His own claims in official records give us a timeline for his professional stature:
• He was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in July 1971;
• He was an associate counsel at Coudere Freres (Brothers), a major US law firm, at its Paris office in France (1971–1975);
• He was called to the Ghanaian Bar in July 1975;
• He was a junior member of the chambers of U.V. Campbell (1975–1979);
• He was a senior partner and co-founder in 1979 with Dr. Edmund of the prominent law firm Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & co.
Here is where the missing link raises very thick doubts. Let’s be patient to understand these doubts and their implications. A very good friend of mine, who began probing into the background of Akufo-Addo as far back as 2008, explained some aspects of the doubts, which I reproduce below:
“A law professor in the UK who was contacted did not mince words in describing Akufo Addo’s professional experience up to 1979 as hollow and very porous. He couldn’t believe that a person called to the English Bar in 1971 should work as “associate counsel” which to him was nothing more than being an “intern” or, put another way, is like a biochemist being recruited as a lab technician, not for ONE year while they look for a job that fits their qualification but for a total of FOUR YEARS (1971–1975)!
“The only plausible explanation may be that Akufo Addo’s qualifications were not up to standard and he was being done a favour as an “intern”. Not only that for an additional FOUR YEARS Akufo Addo was only a “junior member” (and not a partner) of the chambers of U.V. Campbell. The law professor pointed out that within two years of his students being called to the Bar they became partners, NOT “associate counsel” or “junior member” of their law firms!
“U.V. Campbell in whose chambers he worked as “junior member” was the Solicitor-General under the Progress Party government in which his (i.e., Akufo Addo’s) father (Edward Akufo-Addo) was President.
“U.V. Campbell is reported to have practised in Accra and Kumasi but has moved to Jamaica. An Internet search on him led to Ivor Agyeman-Duah’s Between Faith and History: A Biography of J.A. Kufuor which mentioned a U.V. Campbell, an Afro-Caribbean prominent lawyer in the UK who married Kufuor’s sister, Cecilia!”
Further information in the Sixth Annual Report of the ICSID, 1971/1972 revealed that U. V. Campbell (Esq., M.A., LLB, Barrister-At-Law), was a panel member representing Ghana in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) as of June 30, 1977.
We consider the doubts from another angle, focusing on Akufo-Addo after his graduation from Legon in 1967. Here again, my friend’s queries come in handy:
“Since Akufo Addo did not go to any of the universities in the UK to read law—as was common in the UK by the late 1960s—but went to Middle Temple (if his claim is to be believed even), in whose chambers did he do his required “pupillage” to enable him to be recommended to the English Bar Council and to be called to the English Bar?”
We are reminded that he entered Oxford but left in inexplicable circumstances not long thereafter!
We have more probing to do because the doubts are still hanging around. Again, we turn to his early professional life:
“Since Akufo Addo was supposed to be working in France from 1971–1975 as an “associate counsel”, when did he arrive in Ghana to take the CONVERSION EXAMS to qualify to be called to the Ghana Bar in July 1975? Or was he exempted from the exams in Ghana?
“If he was exempted, under what conditions? Did he arrive in Ghana in February 1975 to join the chambers of U.V. Campbell in Ghana, and qualified to be called to the Ghana Bar by July 1975 since his own CV indicates that he was working for Coudere Freres (Brothers) from 1971–1975?”
At this point, several questions still hang unanswered, which is why we won’t give up soon. As my friend puts it, there are too many loopholes in the professional background of Akufo Addo, not to mention other aspects of what has made him an easy prey for those tarnishing his reputation at will. He should, therefore, come clean if he wants to be considered trustworthy enough to rule Ghana.
Official records should be available at that Middle Temple or whatever has become of it to tell us what we need to know about Akufo-Addo’s professional life between 1967 and 1971.
A few friends who have dug into the matter are coming out to say, among others, that “there is no record of him per the year he puts up there. They are all fallacy.”
One of them said emphatically: “I have been doing this underground investigation since year 2007 but could not find anything about him. Even there are top lawyers in Ghana who know of this man but do not want to come up with the evidence. I am currently in Ghana but will be going back to the UK very soon. However, l discussed the issue with some of my classmates and they are all telling me that there is no record of him.”
Once the Pandora’s Box opened by Justice Kpegah’s suit against him remains open, we must be prepared to deal with its contents, however unsightly they may be. Then, we can close that box and hope that nothing new happens to force it open again.
Why is Akufo-Addo the only high-profile Ghanaian lawyer and politician to be turned into a punching bag in the public sphere? Don’t tell me it is because people hate him. It is simply because people have more questions to ask about his background than the answers that his official records and damage controllers provide.
Meantime, our information is that Frank Davies has entered appearance for him in the suit filed against him by retired Supreme Court Judge, Francis Kpegah. This is the preliminary work being done for the trial itself to begin. The rules/procedures have it that within 14 days from the date of filing his Appearance, he has to file his Statement of Defence. Then, the court will fix a date to begin hearing the case.
My good friends, at this point, we will break off to look further afield for more issues concerning this missing link in Akufo-Addo’s background. The more we dig into the matter, the more confounded we become because the gap cannot be plugged. But we won’t give up. We will continue till we solve this puzzle for him. At least, he will be the eventual beneficiary. We are only doing a yeoman’s job for him; but his followers say we do so because we hate him. Phew!!
Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s deadliest pandemic diseases and is becoming increasingly resistant to current drugs. Only with faster, better and affordable cures for tuberculosis can we save millions of lives and overcome this global epidemic. TB kills 1.4 million people each year or more than one person every 25 seconds. Propelled by global poverty, the AIDS epidemic, and drug resistance, the global threat of TB is greater than ever.
Mr David Greeley, who joined the TB Alliance in 2012 as Senior Vice President, External Affairs, with responsibility for TB Alliance’s resource mobilization, policy, advocacy and community engagement initiatives spoke in an exclusive interview to Musah Ibrahim Musah, Editor at AfricaNewsAnalysis in Berlin recently. Excerpts:
Musah: Mr Greeley, TB is by all indications a treatable disease. How do you ensure that it is actually treatable?
Greeley: So, currently, the regimen that is used to treat most populations, these drug sensitive populations is something called HRZE. And that is effective in many, many patients. But adherence is a problem. And adherence is a problem because it takes anywhere from six months to nine months to treat. And many patients feel better after a shorter period of time, but in fact, they live in resource poor settings, and, as a result, with this long regimen, it becomes difficult for them to adhere to and that results in drug resistant. So, the TB Alliance is focused on, as the only organization involved in discovering and developing a new TB medicine, is to shorten treatment, make it easier for patients to be able to be on an effective regimen. And we have trials now that can reduce treatments up to four months and potentially down to two months, making adherence much more easy as well as trying to resist the onslaught of drug resistance which is a big, big problem forcing patients to treat beyond treatment anywhere from two-years to two-and-a-half years and much more expensive and difficult to treat regimen.
Looking at your vision to shorten TB treatment from 7 to 10 days, do we have the technology to achieve that?
A vision is a vision; and we’re working in that direction and already we have shown in our clinical work the potential to reduce treatment from 30 months down to two months; and we hope one day to be able to treat it like any other antibiotic, after all, that’s what TB treatment is, down to 7 to 10 days.
Why are the strains drug resistant? Is it because of patient non-compliance or are the strains becoming more clever?
The strains are becoming cleverer and some of the statistics demonstrates that there are an increasing number, up to 15% I believe in Eastern Europe, near Germany, of new cases of drug-resistant. So, most drug-resistance comes about because people do not adhere to the regimen, and they become resistant. But resistance, drug resistance now can be passed onto new patients who have never before been, have active TB. Instead of being drug sensitive TB jump already to be drug resistant TB. That’s an increasing problem with increasingly difficult complicated strains of TB.
Is TB a disease of neglected people?
TB is a disease of neglected people. It occurs for the most part, in poor settings, whether that be, in Africa, or in parts of China, or even in the US, and in western countries. And it is a disease of poverty and it’s really a vicious cycle because the more the TB broods in poverty, the more poverty takes place. And TB itself is a drain on one’s personal income; and that, itself, means that more disposable income has to be spent on TB treatment, and long TB treatment, rather than something else. TB is also bred in poverty because it is a disease that’s transmitted through the air. TB is everywhere and anywhere and its low resource settings, where sanitary conditions are not good with its over-crowding habitations. TB is spread much more quickly. One active TB patient is estimated to infect up to another 15. So, until and unless we have better diagnostics, early detection and shorter treatment we can’t really do anything to transform the TB disease which today kills more than 1.4 million people every year.
Finally, is the TB Alliance satisfied with the current collaboration with governments in Africa in fighting the disease?
Yes, I think, to be effective in delivering healthcare in any country in the world including in Africa, in African countries, collaboration with the governments is critical. What they must understand is TB regiment has not been on the market, new ones in almost half a century. So, we have to work with them to get them prepared whether it is regulatory approval, registration, changing protocols, and practices and guidelines, for the introduction of new transformative TB treatment. So national TB programs and governments need to be very active in that regard, and also advocate when they are not able themselves to finance some of the drug TB R&D (Research and Development) to get donors and other institutions that have the means to be able to fund TB trials in their countries so that one day, more patients can be effectively treated with more effective shorter and less expensive regimens.
Thanks for your time, Mr Greeley.
David Greeley
Mr. Greeley has spent more than 25 years working for various international non-profit development and health organizations, and for the pharmaceutical company, Merck & Co., Inc. Most recently, he was Vice President at the non-profit FHI 360, where he was responsible for developing and overseeing partnerships to provide health information, services and products in the developing world, and for garnering the financial support to do so. From 1998-2008, Mr. Greeley worked for Merck, first heading up the Latin America and Caribbean division’s Public Affairs and Policy Department, and then, leading the company’s global HIV/AIDS programs in the Office of Corporate Responsibility. In that capacity, he oversaw Merck’s access programs, public-private partnerships, policy, and stakeholder relations. Previously, Mr. Greeley worked at the non-profits PSI and CARE, including establishing PSI’s new business development department and overseeing programs in Asia. Mr. Greeley has travelled to 90 countries, and has worked and lived in the US, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
Mr. Greeley holds a B.A. in political science from Brandeis University and an M.A. from the Columbia University School of International Affairs. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Afropop.
About Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is a global pandemic, killing someone approximately every 25 seconds — nearly 1.4 million in 2010 alone.
TB is second only to HIV as the leading infectious killer of adults worldwide. It is among the three greatest causes of death of women aged 15-44 and is the leading infectious cause of death among people with HIV/AIDS.
TB is global. The WHO estimates that two billion people — one third of the world’s population — are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), the bacillus that causes the disease. M.tb’s unique cell wall, which has a waxy coating primarily composed of mycolic acids, allows the bacillus to lie dormant for many years. The body’s immune system may restrain the disease, but it does not destroy it. While some people with this latent infection will never develop active TB, five to 10 percent of carriers will become sick in their lifetime.
Once active, TB attacks the respiratory system and other organs, destroying body tissue. The disease is contagious, spreading through the air by coughing, sneezing, or even talking. An estimated nine million new active cases develop each year.
At any given moment, more than 12 million people around the world are suffering from an active infection.
Despite enormous advances in provision of services in recent years, TB’s deadly synergy with HIV/AIDS and a surge in drug-resistant strains are threatening to destabilize gains in TB control. While incidence is stable or falling in many regions of the world, global rates of new infections are still rising in many endemic areas where TB goes hand-in-hand with HIV/AIDS and the effects of poverty. About
TB Alliance
Our mission is to discover and develop better, faster-acting, and affordable drugs to fight tuberculosis.
We envision a world where no one has to die of tuberculosis. However, this cannot be achieved without new, better, and faster-acting tuberculosis drug regimens. The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) was established in 2000 as a not-for-profit product development partnership to lead the search for new TB regimens and catalyze global efforts for new TB regimens that can bring hope, and health, to millions.
Since it’s inception in 2000, the TB Alliance has been making leaps of progress toward this goal.
Before the TB Alliance was established, there were no clinical-stage TB drug candidates being developed, let alone realistic hope for novel TB drug regimens. Today, working with a broad range of public and private stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies, universities, and other research laboratories around the world, the TB Alliance is leading the advancement of the most comprehensive portfolio of TB drug candidates in history. From this global network, the TB Alliance leverages the most promising science to advance new TB drug regimens that are needed to fight this pandemic.
We are driven by the needs of TB patients around the world, and committed to ensuring that approved new regimens are affordable, adopted and available to those who need them. To ensure our products reach the hands of those who need them most urgently, the TB Alliance and its partners are working with global, regional, and national stakeholders to facilitate regulatory approval, adoption by TB programs, and widespread availability of new drug regimens.
–President Kufuor calls for prioritization of support in fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)
His Excellency, John Agyekum Kufuor served as the President of the Republic of Ghana from 2001-2009. During his presidency, he served as chairperson of the African Union (2007-08) during which he supervised the peaceful Resolution of the conflict in Kenya, among others. He was chairman of the Economic Community of West African States for two Terms (2003-05) and saw to the successful negotiations that brought peace and Major post-war reconstruction to Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia. In April 2012 Sabin Vaccine Institute announced President Kufuor as the organization’s new neglected tropical disease (NTD) Special Envoy. In the first year of his appointment as Special Envoy, President Kufuor has travelled extensively promoting the efforts of the Global Network in the fight against NTDs. During his second trip (to Belgium and France) on behalf of the Global Network, President Kufuor took time off his busy schedule to talk to Musah Ibrahim Musah, Editor at AfricaNewsAnalysis in a telephone interview from Paris. Excerpts:
Your Excellency, you have travelled and met other leaders since you assumed the leadership as Special Envoy to the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases. How optimistic are you about fresh support for long-term pledges to boost NTD investment in Africa and beyond?
I am quite optimistic because everywhere we have been so far, we’ve been given a good ear. These authorities are people who have been involved and supporting and sponsoring the causes for promoting the general good health of people. Our work really is, mainly to get them to, perhaps, balance their allocations of support. Because if you take the various authorities like Norway, Germany, Belgium, and we were with the European Commission yesterday (March 12, 2013), the United States, the United Kingdom, all of them have been supporting the fight against the so-called orphaned or Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). The only thing is, perhaps the prioritization of support for these diseases have tended to lag behind that of the major known diseases like HIV-AIDS, malaria, and TB. So, our work is to, more or less get them not to continue to treat the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) like the ‘country cousins’ of the major ones. We find all these diseases so inter-connected with the big ones that if they are not included in the prioritization we find eventually that they might become causes for relapse even of the treated major diseases in the endemic areas. So we want a more balanced support for the NTDs with the big ones.
We are sure you are working hard to get the prioritization of support to a positive end.
Yes, yes, everywhere we’ve been so far, we’ve had a very good hearing and there is no reason on our part to doubt the sincerity of commitment of the donor community.
Some experts describe you as “Voice for Change” to try and impress on your fellow leaders in the G20, the European Union etc. on the need for fresh impetus in the cause. How satisfied are you with your role so far?
Well, I am quite satisfied. I got invited to assume the role as you describe it just about two years ago and as I said, so far everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve been given a good hearing and I do not have any cause that the efforts of the Global Network would be in vain. So, I am happy.
Are government’s and policy makers you have so far met, aware of the hypothesis that investing in NTD control and elimination is a cost-effective public health measure and thus one of the best buys in healthcare interventions?
Well, the argument is so clear, and is supported by very convincing Statistics from authoritative sources and calculations that you need as little as 50 Cent a year per person to fight at least seven of the so-called neglected diseases to bring them under control, effective control, …… more cost effective than this, whereas with the major ones like HIV-AIDS, you’re talking anti-malarials fights, you’re talking tuberculosis, figures per person tend to be very, very, high; but the prevalence, if you have to compare and contrast, are of the neglected diseases is so big, they afflict over a billion people compared with, say, some tens of millions with the more publicized diseases like HIV-AIDS. These diseases are opportunistic, if you fight say malaria exclusively, and you do not look at the various worms in our water bodies and our polluted soils, then you see that your efforts with say, malaria, may be not be realized politically. So, the diseases are all related, inter-related. So, we want an integrated and comprehensive assault on all the diseases including the big names as well as the neglected diseases. This is what the whole campaign is all about.
Your Excellency, what, in your view is the role of public private partnership in the management, control and elimination of NTDs?
The whole world is awakening to the necessity to tackle social problems of growth and development again in a partnership way. You don’t leave all the problems and challenges to governments exclusively and then sit back to expect solutions to the challenges. The governments after all are representatives of the bigger society. And so what the public private partnership concept is calling on societies to do is to realize that, for improving the quality of life of people which should be central all this things we’re talking about is government’s efforts plus the effects of say the private sector, and when we talk private sector here, we include civil society organizations and even the individuals and communities. We must all hold hands together to fight the challenges; to overcome the challenges. So at the end of the day, quality of life of the citizen or, of the individual is bettered. That’s what it is about; and I believe the entire world is awakening to this. And this is the justification for promoting the public private partnership idea.
Your Excellency, what would you say about the London Declaration one year on?
Well I will say the world is moving in the right direction. We are into globalization. I personally believe, now we’re not talking of just nationalities, or races or gender, we’re talking of humanity and I believe the world is moving in the right direction with the declaration such as the London one.
As part of the END7 campaign, a PSA (Public Service Announcement) was recently launched featuring celebrities. How important, in your opinion, is Social Media in the fight against NTDs?
Social Media? The world moves on communications now. If you conceive an idea and you do not put it across convincingly to rally support across the board for the implementation of the idea, the idea remains only in your head, perhaps. So the social media, I believe has a very, very important role to play in advancing the good cause of our time.
Finally, Mr President, in your role as Special Envoy to the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), what would you say are the economic value of NTD programmes and the positive impact NTD control and elimination campaigns have on socio-economic development?
You need a healthy worker to achieve productivity. If I may reduce it to the proper nurturing of children, if the child is not made healthy, you put it to school, and you find that it cannot even pay the necessary attention to studies. So, efforts in trying to educate children would be quite wasteful. So, health I believe is the pivot around which you talk productivity. And it is so in the economy. A healthy community would be a productive community, and that’s the way to grow the economy to better conditions of life for all. So, what we’re trying to do in the fight against neglected diseases is, by implication, like trying to promote productivity.
Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases
The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (Global Network), a major program of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, is an advocacy and resource mobilization initiative dedicated to raising the awareness, political will, and funding necessary to control and eliminate the seven most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs): soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm, ascariasis, and trichuriasis), onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, trachoma, and lymphatic filariasis.
The vision of the Global Network is a world free of NTDs where children and families are able to grow, learn and become productive members of their communities. We are committed to working with governments, individuals, institutions and corporations globally to make this a reality as we end the neglect.
Sabin Vaccine Institute
Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization made up of scientists, researchers, and advocates dedicated to reducing needless human suffering from vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases. Sabin works with governments, leading public and private organizations, and academic institutions to provide solutions for some of the world’s most pervasive health care challenges.
Since its founding in 1993 in honor of the oral polio vaccine developer, Dr. Albert B. Sabin, the Institute has been at the forefront of efforts to control, treat, and eliminate vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases by developing new vaccines, advocating use of existing vaccines, and promoting increased access to affordable medical treatments.
Sabin was founded on the legacy and global vision of one of medicine’s most pre-eminent scientific figures, Dr. Albert B. Sabin, who is best known for developing the oral live virus polio vaccine. Dr. Sabin not only dedicated his entire professional career to groundbreaking medical advancements to reduce human suffering, he also waged a tireless and lifelong campaign against poverty and ignorance.
Sabin works to provide greater access to vaccines and essential treatments for hundreds of millions of people stuck in a cycle of pain, poverty and despair. Sabin’s three main programs – Sabin Vaccine Development, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, and Vaccine Advocacy and Education – strive to uphold Dr. Sabin’s lifelong efforts by developing preventative measures for diseases that place burdens on the world’s poorest countries.
Sabin’s diverse partnerships are key to our efforts to fulfill the organization’s mission. In 2011, the Sabin Product Development Partnership (Sabin PDP) relocated to Houston, Texas to begin a new affiliation with Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). The Sabin PDP laboratories are housed in a new, state-of-the-art, 10,000 square-foot facility at TCH, which is part of Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical center.
These and other partnerships with groups such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, governments, academic institutions, scientists, medical professionals, and non-profit organizations are critical in furthering the development of strategies to reduce human suffering from devastating vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases.
About END7
END7 is an international advocacy campaign that seeks to raise the awareness and funding necessary to control and eliminate the seven most common neglected tropical diseases by 2020. The international effort to control and eliminate NTDs has the support of a diverse group of global partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO), national governments, pharmaceutical companies, corporations and individuals. END7 is run by the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, an initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute.
About NTDs
NTDs are a group of 17 parasitic and bacterial infections that are the most common afflictions of the world’s poorest people. They blind, disable and disfigure their victims, trapping them in a cycle of poverty and disease. Research shows that treating NTDs lifts millions out of poverty by ensuring that children stay in school to learn and prosper; by strengthening worker productivity; and by improving maternal and child health.
In the global fight for the control and elimination of the world’s most devastating and debilitating diseases that affects over a billion people, one organization, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases has since emerged as a leading light in this noble venture.
Dr Neeraj Mistry, Managing Director, Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases/Photo: Agbelessessy/ANA
An initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, it envisioned a world free of NTDs where the entire community, particularly, children, are able to grow, have access to education that will eventually enable them make meaningful contributions to their communities.
To get an insight into the Global Networks views on the state of NTDs in the aftermath of the release of the 2nd WHO (World Health Organization) Report on NTDs, Dr Neeraj Mistry, the Managing Director, told AfricaNewsAnalysis (ANA) in an exclusive telephone interview that January 2013 was “a really important month in the NTD movement.”
He observed that “there was the release of the 2nd NTD Report from WHO, there was also a release of the Report of the London Declaration on NTDs which was all the partners that are sort of working towards a common goal to reach the elimination targets of 2020.
“And this is all based on the analysis contained in the WHO Report which was also a year ago when the WHO released a Road Map to tackle NTDs.”
Dr Mistry described the positive developments as “a significant progress on NTDs and its done in a very cost-effective way, it’s done in partnership with, as a public private partnership, with the drug companies who are donating the drugs and assistance from WHO in creating the policies and programme guidelines and which countries are adhering to, the technical assistance from the NGO partners who are involved in countries working with governments which are actually executing the programmes.”
He observed that “things are going well,” adding that “there is global momentum.”
On what needs to be done to actually meet the 2020 elimination targets, Dr Mistry stressed the need to “keep the pressure up and accelerate the response in order to meet those targets.”
Asked how he intend to keep up the pressure, Dr Mistry had this to say:
“So this is where we actually have to bring new partners into the NTD response. For example, the largest contributors of NTD are the US and UK governments and what we need to do is actually bring more countries co-opted from the G20 and the wealthier nations to actually contribute to that. The second thing is we have about 15 countries around the world now they have endemic countries; countries endemic with NTDs that have national integrated plans for NTD control. This is an excellent step and we have to ensure that these aren’t just plans in the Ministry of Health but they are actually being executed upon. And many countries are on the path to launching these plans and implementing these programmes but we’ve got to make sure that they actually make these things happen and working together with that. And the third element is that we’ve got to ensure that the drug donations and commitments that have been made by the pharmaceutical companies are actually not sitting in warehouses but they’re getting to the mouths of the patients. So we’ve got to make sure that the supply chains and delivery of these drugs is actually working.
How are you going to ensure that governments sustain their work in prevention and control of NTDs?
The policies are in place, the drug supplies are there, the technical assistance is there but the pressure comes from general society and that is why we launched the PSA (Public Service Announcement), for the N7 campaign with the celebrities. And these work on two levels. One, in the donor countries like the US, the UK and Europe, this will help to raise awareness to NTDs as a global health and development priority that would address needs of the poorest billion people in the world and so that’s why the tax payers in the wealthier countries can put pressure on their governments to continue the commitment and actually put new resources into NTD control.”
Dr Mistry said “the PSA is to actually raise awareness among the general populations of endemic countries so they can put pressure on their governments to actually implement these programmes. And I think that the opportunities we have is that the PSA campaign is a social media campaign and we’re all aware now that across Africa, mobile connectivity is at an all-time high and the use of social media is also on the increase. So we want to start creating the tools like with the PSA that will actually help raise awareness across Africa for example of NTDs that will actually hold governments accountable for these programme.
Speaking on the impacts of NTDs on the socio-economic development of endemic countries, the Global Network’s Managing Director had this to say: “this is one of the most important motivating factors for governments to institute policies and bilateral donor programmes for NTDs. In January this year something else has happened when we held a panel in Washington DC for the launch of the Hudson Review on the ‘Socio-economic impact of NTDs’. And a lot of information is contained in that. Let me just give you an example, there was a study done by Michael Kremer that showed following children for 20 years into adulthood and those adults who have higher rates of economic return and productivity where actually de-wormed as children when compared to those adults who were not de-wormed as children. And so that justified the socio-economic return on investment just from de-worming. But further to that, and what we call positive externalities of interventions, we’re finding that increase school attendance, there’s better improvement in cognitive developments in children. The level of energy from addressing things like anemia and malnutrition when de-worming and treatment of NTDs is done is really, really high. The responsiveness and effectiveness of routine immunizations for measles is also improved. And so we’re finding that the impacts are far-reaching. We have demonstrated high impact on something like economic productivity in the long run and that in itself makes the case. But furthermore we find that there is even exponential impact through the broader societal impact that NTDs have on education, nutrition, general well-being and energy and economic productivity.
Asked to comment on the assertion that prevention and control of NTDs will contribute to the attainment of several MDGs. Dr Mistry said: “Absolutely, and I thing that in the current articulation of the MDGs, NTDs fall into the other diseases on MDGs, HIV, TB, Malaria and we feel that as we look at the post MDGs, the post 2015 architecture of how we organize what’s being called the sustainable development goal, we need to find the cross-cutting interventions and issues that actually have such broad impact on society. And we feel that NTDs because of its impact on nutrition, education, general well-being, anemia, the standards of the role of women in society , economic productivity it is one of those cross-cutting issues that touch nearly all the MDGs level intervention, upon which all our other interventions depend.
ABOUT SABIN VACCINE INSTITUTE
Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization made up of scientists, researchers, and advocates dedicated to reducing needless human suffering from vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases. Sabin works with governments, leading public and private organizations, and academic institutions to provide solutions for some of the world’s most pervasive health care challenges.
Since its founding in 1993 in honor of the oral polio vaccine developer, Dr. Albert B. Sabin, the Institute has been at the forefront of efforts to control, treat, and eliminate vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases by developing new vaccines, advocating use of existing vaccines, and promoting increased access to affordable medical treatments.
Sabin was founded on the legacy and global vision of one of medicine’s most pre-eminent scientific figures, Dr. Albert B. Sabin, who is best known for developing the oral live virus polio vaccine. Dr. Sabin not only dedicated his entire professional career to groundbreaking medical advancements to reduce human suffering, he also waged a tireless and lifelong campaign against poverty and ignorance.
Sabin works to provide greater access to vaccines and essential treatments for hundreds of millions of people stuck in a cycle of pain, poverty and despair. Sabin’s three main programs – Sabin Vaccine Development, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, and Vaccine Advocacy and Education – strive to uphold Dr. Sabin’s lifelong efforts by developing preventative measures for diseases that place burdens on the world’s poorest countries.
Sabin’s diverse partnerships are key to our efforts to fulfill the organization’s mission. In 2011, the Sabin Product Development Partnership (Sabin PDP), re-located to Houston, Texas to begin a new affiliation with Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). The Sabin PDP laboratories are housed in a new, state-of-the-art, 10,000 square-foot facility at TCH, which is part of Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical center.
These and other partnerships with groups such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, governments, academic institutions, scientists, medical professionals, and non-profit organizations are critical in furthering the development of strategies to reduce human suffering from devastating vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases.
Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases
The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (Global Network), a major program of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, is an advocacy and resource mobilization initiative dedicated to raising the awareness, political will, and funding necessary to control and eliminate the seven most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs): soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm, ascariasis, and trichuriasis), onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, trachoma, and lymphatic filariasis. The vision of the Global Network is a world free of NTDs where children and families are able to grow, learn and become productive members of their communities. We are committed to working with governments, individuals, institutions and corporations globally to make this a reality as we end the neglect.
About END7
END7 is an international advocacy campaign that seeks to raise the awareness and funding necessary to control and eliminate the seven most common neglected tropical diseases by 2020. The international effort to control and eliminate NTDs has the support of a diverse group of global partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO), national governments, pharmaceutical companies, corporations and individuals. END7 is run by the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, an initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute.
About NTDs
NTDs are a group of 17 parasitic and bacterial infections that are the most common afflictions of the world’s poorest people. They blind, disable and disfigure their victims, trapping them in a cycle of poverty and disease. Research shows that treating NTDs lifts millions out of poverty by ensuring that children stay in school to learn and prosper; by strengthening worker productivity; and by improving maternal and child health.
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