France says drug against Chikungunya available soon

[Jeremy]

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-11T230925Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-267060-1.xml&archived=False

PARIS (Reuters) - A drug to fight the crippling Chikungunya disease that has hit Indian Ocean islands such as La Reunion could be ready by the end of the year, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said on Monday.

The mosquito-borne virus, first identified in Tanzania in 1952, is marked by high fever, severe rashes and extremely painful joint aches. Although it is not considered fatal, it can weaken the immune system, allowing deadly diseases to set in.

Roughly 40 percent of La Reunion's population have been infected and health officials fear that the end of winter in the southern hemisphere around November could encourage the spread of the disease. The island is a French territory.

"We are confident today that a drug to treat Chikungunya will be made available and we are hopeful that this drug will be available at the very end of this year or at the very start of 2007," Bertrand told reporters after a meeting on the disease at the office of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Ongoing clinical trials have involved 75 people so far, he said.

"There must be more patients to ensure that the drug is completely effective," Bertrand said.

He added that French and American authorities had signed an agreement on Sept. 6 to work on a vaccine.

Measures currently in place have helped cut the number of new cases by two thirds compared to August 2005, he said.

 

[Jeremy]

Re: France says drug against Chikungunya available soon

This is one of those good news, bad news situations.

First the good news:

It appears that a vaccine will be ready by the end of the year. While this may be good for the people of La Reunion I have to wonder if they are going to create enough vaccine for the people of India. Last time I checked there were more people infected in India than La Reunion.

What is really interesting to me is that the United States is joining in creating a vaccine with the French. I wonder how much of a threat the CDC thinks Chikungunya is? Regardless they are taking the appropriate action.

The bad news:

Some people have wondered why I am so "obsessed" with the 'gunya'. Well, in case you forgot or never knew, it is because an H5N1 outbreak will be just as explosive as the chik outbreak if not more explosive. So by watching chikungunya it provides you with a model of how a pandemic can unfold in the modern world. Even though chikungunya was rarely fatal, it serves as a good model for some of the sociological issues that will develop.

The real bad news was the time that it took to create a vaccine, almost 1 year, which if this were H5N1 would have been very bad and the it appears that the vaccine is not being targeted to the Indian population. Most likely in an H5N1 outbreak you can expect the wealthiest nations to benefit first from any vaccines and then whatever is left will filter down the the poorer nations. If you noticed, there is no discussion or inclusion of India in this vaccine so if there was a pecking order for who gets it I would say it goes, something like United States, France, India or France, United States, India.

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: France says drug against Chikungunya available soon

Jeremy is righ, we were not too many following last year epidemic of Chickungunya in the island of La R?union. Because the local gov did not want its touristic industry to suffer they were in denial state. It is the courage and persistance of local docs that the real numbers got out in a private forum. Then people lost confidence in their political leaders, some lost confidence in the GP and drug stores managers.

The social reaction witness in La R?union would probably the same if the information concerning a pandemic of H5N1 occur.

A year later, most of the Truth is out and people can really be effective to stop this pandemic. They now understand better the causes, the treatments and the ways to cope with this pandemic.

Sadly the Denial Spirit prevailed for some provinces in India too, and of course some riots happenned.

I hope the govs will learn from this pandemic and not repeat the same mistake, because with the Truth people seems more secure, less parano?d and mostly more effective.