In particular, MSF urged relevant politicians and health departments at national and regional levels to coordinate efforts to ensure access to new TB drugs at affordable prices for all EU countries both through existing initiatives and through joint negotiations with pharmaceutical companies and to facilitate the registration of all TB drugs in EU countries, ensuring their timely marketing.
14 JUN –
After the meeting between the World Health Organization (WHO), representatives of European health institutions and members of civil society to improve access to drugs for Tuberculosis (TB) in the European Union, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and other activist networks call on European countries to immediately remove barriers that hinder access to TB drugs and update European policies on the matter according to guidelines approved by WHO.
In particular, MSF urged relevant politicians and health departments at national and regional levels to coordinate efforts to ensure access to new TB drugs at affordable prices for all EU countries both through existing initiatives and through joint negotiations with pharmaceutical companies and to facilitate the registration of all TB drugs in EU countries, ensuring their timely marketing, taking advantage of existing legal flexibilities and communicating requests to manufacturers.
“European governments cannot afford to fall behind, jeopardizing decades of progress and losing lives that could be saved with timely access to effective TB treatments,” he says. Chiara Montaldo, medical director of Doctors Without Borders Italy -. The time has come for Europe to put TB back on the health agenda and commit to finding real and tangible solutions. People with TB in Europe have waited long enough.”
In many EU countries, new drugs, such as WHO-recommended oral DR-TB treatments, pediatric formulations, and shorter preventive treatments for TB, most of which are already widely available in low- and middle-income countries income, remain inaccessible due to high prices or lack of registration.
For example, WHO recommends a six-month oral-only drug regimen to treat drug-resistant TB. This regimen, consisting of bedaquiline, pretomanid, linezolid and moxifloxacin (BPaLM), costs over €40,000 in many EU countries, while it is available for €380 in low- and middle-income countries through the Global Drug Facility, an international drug procurement mechanism. drugs and diagnostics for TB.
“Twelve years ago, my only option for treatment of drug-resistant TB was to take injectable drugs, with serious side effects such as psychosis and constant nausea. Plus I had less than a 50% chance of recovery – he states Stefan Radut, drug-resistant TB survivor and board member of the TB Europe Coalition -. I lost half of my hearing due to the toxic mix of drugs I had to take and half of my left lung due to the low effectiveness of the treatment. Today there are very effective oral treatments, but they are difficult to access. People are faced with the fact that the drugs they need are not available, or if they are, they are forced to stay in hospitals more than 300 kilometers away from their home, as local clinics are often unable to obtain them. necessary medications. It is absolutely unacceptable that these new treatments, all oral, with a much higher probability of cure, are still not accessible to the people who need them.”
In 2022, MSF began responding to the needs of refugees arriving in Poland and Slovakia from Ukraine affected by the escalating conflict, including people with TB and its drug-resistant (DR) forms. However, it soon became clear that neither Poland nor Slovakia would be able to provide adequate therapies against TB, considering limited medical facilities, outdated standards for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of TB, and the lack of integration of lines WHO guidance in national health policies.
“When we started supporting people living with TB in Poland in 2022, we were shocked that new and more effective treatment regimens, which have been available for many years in countries with a high rate of TB, were simply not available in Poland – he declares Joanna Ladomirska, MSF medical coordinator in Poland -. In Poland and many other EU countries, children still have to take inaccurately dosed drugs, and even those with non-resistant forms of TB have to take 11 pills a day instead of the three pills a day of multi-drug, single-dose combination formulations fixed, available elsewhere. Eliminating TB in Europe will remain a distant dream unless this gap in access to treatment is closed. We urge European countries to continue their past efforts to eradicate TB and to take immediate action to provide the best and most advanced TB treatments and care to those who need it.”
Recognizing the growing increase in TB and its resistant forms in many EU countries, WHO has convened a meeting in 2022 to identify gaps and suggest solutions. However, there has been little progress at national and regional levels in ensuring access to WHO-recommended medicines and addressing supply issues.
June 14, 2024
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