New York-listed global pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has opened a $3-million (R19,9-million) facility in Cape Town to produce its deworming agent albendazole.
The factory will manufacture the tablets for what is on track to be the largest drug-donation programme in global pharmaceutical industry history, to eradicate lymphatic filariasis (LF) over a 20-year period, the company said in a statement late on Wednesday.
GSK has been working with the World Health Organisation for the past seven years on a program to eliminate LF by halting the transmission of the disease. LF threatens more than one billion people in 80 countries, and 120-million people are already affected, 40-million of whom are seriously incapacitated and disfigured by the disease.
To date, 12 countries have launched LF elimination programmes in Africa, reaching more than 20-million people. These annual mass drug-administration efforts have resulted in a significant decline in the level of infection, said GSK CEO JP Garnier.
“The world rightly focuses much attention on Aids, TB [tuberculosis] and malaria, but we mustn’t fall into the trap of forgetting those diseases, such as LF, which cause enormous suffering and poverty.
“With the right will and with continuing efforts, LF could be the second disease in history to be eliminated,” he added.
This year, GSK expects to donate 140-million treatments of albendazole to 40 countries worldwide.
Since the inception of the programme in 1998, GSK has provided, free of charge, more than 400-million albendazole treatments to more than 80-million people worldwide. The company has committed to provide as much albendazole as required to eliminate the disease.
The WHO has identified three priority diseases — TB, HIV/Aids and malaria — plus a number of what it calls “neglected tropical diseases”. These include river blindness (onchocerciasis), worms (intestinal helminths), guinea worm and LF.
Smallpox, in 1977, is the only disease to have been eradicated to date from the world. LF, along with polio and guinea worm, all have the potential to follow. — I-Net Bridge