$62 Million Worth of Donated Drugs for NTDs
The Niger NTD Control Programme is funded through USAID’s NTD Control Programme and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI). Other partners include the WHO, UNICEF, RISEAL, and the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI). The drugs, to treat approximately 8 million people, are for lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), trachoma (preventable blindness), schistosomiasis (bilharzia) and soil-transmitted helminths (intestinal worms).
The 2008 integrated NTD treatment campaign, which will start on the 5th
of May, is the second campaign organised by Niger’s NTD Control
Programme. |
On April 23rd, 2008
the Niger NTD Control Programme officially handed over to the Ministry
of Health the $62.7m worth of donated drugs that will be used in Niger’s
2008 Neglected Tropical Disease mass treatment campaign. The ceremony
was presided over by the Honourable Mr. Issa Lamine, the Minister of
Health and Dr. Amadou Garba, the Niger NTD Control Programme Manager.
The drugs were donated from a variety of different pharmaceutical
companies and partners. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer, through the
International Trachoma Initiative, donated 14,431,680 tablets and
362,688 bottles of syrup of Zithromax for the treatment of trachoma.
Merck and GSK, both through the Mectizan Donation Program, donated
14,813,000 tablets of Mectizan and 5,624,400 tablets of Albendazole
(respectively) for the treatment of lymphatic filariasis. Other drug
donations came from UNICEF who gave 145,000 tubes of tetracycline for
trachoma, USAID who provided 3,100,000 tablets of Praziquantel for the
treatment of schistosomiasis and 200,000 tablets of Albendazole for
soil-transmitted helminths. In addition, the SCI provided enough funding
to ensure that each health centre in the treatment regions had all the
medicines required for possible side-effects.
The Minister of Health thanked the NTD partners for their ongoing
financial and technical support and guaranteed the security of the
donated drugs to ensure they reached the target population. Until the
drugs are transported to regional and district health centres the
Nigerien Red Cross has kindly provided a large secured store room in
Niamey.