Contagious compassion

The website of the Department of Health (DOH) indicates that malaria is endemic to certain municipalities in 63 of the Philippines’ provinces.

While residents living in these communities may develop partial immunity to the disease, they are nonetheless at risk of succumbing to malaria parasites. They may not manifest symptoms of malaria immediately, but this offers little peace of mind. Only a thorough blood examination, and not external appearances, will reveal whether or not the disease has indeed invaded the person’s blood stream.

Among these locales, there is a strong need for both malaria treatment and, most importantly, malaria prevention. A big challenge for local government health units is finding a way to provide the appropriate treatment and prevention.

I respect and admire our barangay health workers for doing all they can to fight malaria. But we all know that they operate on a shoestring budget. So how can they become more effective health warriors and combat this dreadful disease with greater, more appreciable results? One way to achieve this, I believe, is for local health centers to ally themselves with, and avail of the resources, facilities and expertise of established health institutions like pharmaceutical companies willing to help them formulate workable strategies in this regard.

With that in mind, the recent announcement of Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), to help solve the malaria crisis in the world’s poorest countries comes as a very timely development. In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Witty disclosed that, consistent with its corporate philosophy, GSK wishes to work with governments and scientists to address healthcare challenges in third world countries. That, of course, includes the Philippines.

One of GSK’s immediate strategies is to create an effective vaccine for malaria, even if it doesn’t guarantee the company a sizable profit. There are more cost-effective and profitable drugs to develop, but the company decided to focus its sights on producing a viable vaccine for malaria and other so-called neglected third world diseases.

According to Witty, GSK has developed “RTS,S” the world’s most promising malaria vaccine candidate, which is currently undergoing final trials in seven African countries. I also read that the pricing model for this vaccine will cover the cost of the medicine with a small return. This amount, I was informed, will be fully reinstated into second-generation malaria vaccines. Such an investment, while costly, will ensure a sustained campaign against malaria, should the viruses mutate or develop resistance against the RTS,S vaccine.

That GSK is endeavouring to produce a vaccine despite the lack of financial promise is truly admirable. Even more impressive is its plans to create an open “knowledge pool.” This means GSK is opening certain patents and encouraging scientists to tap into the expertise, knowledge and research of the company, while pursuing their own projects as part of an integrated drug development team. Mr. Witty announced that a non-profit organization will be funded with an initial investment of $8 million to help facilitate the better sharing of breakthroughs.

Building on its commitment to sustain this knowledge pool, the GSK head stated that governance of the collected information will be handled by an independent third party, BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH). The groups have also agreed to further open up knowledge, chemical libraries, and other assets in the search for new and better medicines.

After screening its pharmaceutical compound library of more than 2 million molecules, GSK has identified 13,500 compounds that could lead to the development of new and innovative treatments for malaria.

That should give you an idea of the complexity of a vaccine’s development process. It’s a search for that proverbial needle in the haystack, a hunt for that one substance, out of literally millions, that could prevent a particular disease. The more eyes searching, the greater the likelihood of finding that breakthrough substance.

 GSK announced that it will make these findings freely available to the public and to the scientific communities. The release of this information will mark the first time that a pharmaceutical company has made public the structures of so many of its compounds.

In the Philippines specifically, GSK instituted the ValueHealth program and philosophy. Since 2004, it has reduced the prices of its globally-trusted brands to make these affordable to more Filipinos. In March 2009, it also launched its biggest initiative yet with the lowering of the prices of most of its major brands by 30-50 percent. Once their malaria vaccine is released, I believe ValueHealth will likewise make the drug more accessible to those who need it.

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Pinoy Rotarians will celebrate 90 years of service on Tuesday, February 23, at the Music hall of Asia Mall on Roxas Boulevard.

For refreshers, a young lawyer in Chicago, Paul Harris, formed a club with three friends in 1905, hoping to recapture the atmosphere of camaraderie and friendship he had experienced growing up in a small town in America. Because they rotated meetings between their offices, they called their group the Rotary Club.

Over the next century, Rotary grew from a single club into a diverse, international network of nearly 33,000 clubs in more than 200 countries. Rotary became truly international in 1919 when the Rotary Club of Manila was formed.

Rotary’s 1.2 million members are business and professional leaders united by the motto, “Service Above Self.” Rotary has no political or religious agenda, and is open to men and women of all backgrounds. Today there are over 800 Rotary clubs with more than 20,00 members in the Philippines.

Here are Philippines’ firsts: the first drop of Sabin Polio vaccine was administered to a Filipino child in Makati in 1979; the first 3-H Grant (Health, Hunger & Humanity) project of Rotary International was launched in the Philippines; the first initiative to “End Polio” globally was in the Philippines, the beginning of the landmark Rotary project of “Ending Polio Now.”

To date, The Rotary Foundation has awarded a total of $500 million grants in 200 countries, and approximately $20 million was given to the Philippines for various humanitarian projects.

Rotary has awarded a total of $87 million to 340 projects in different countries. The last two were awarded to projects of Rotary Club of Makati San Lorenzo in the amount of $336,000 and to RC Paranaque in the amount of $150,000 both in District 3830 during the presidency of Rotarian Cha-Cha Camacho in 2008.

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