Health and Social Needs

Help in the fight against african sleeping sickness

Nearly 60 million people in Africa are threatened by African sleeping sickness. In Congo this infection now kills as many people as AIDS. To help combat the disease, Bayer has agreed to provide its active ingredient suramin to the World Health Organization free of charge for a five-year period.

African sleeping sickness is caused by a parasite transmitted by the tsetse fly. It is a fatal condition if left untreated. The disease was brought under control in the 1960s, but since then prevention and therapy have been neglected, leading to a resurgence of sleeping sickness.

Bayer is providing 2.5 million tablets containing the active substance nifurtimox plus additional financial resources over the next five years. This will ensure a stable supply of the drug until 2012. The drug was originally developed and registered for the treatment of Chagas' disease, a parasite-transmitted infectious disease occurring primarily in Central and South America. Several trials have taken place using different dosages for treatment of sleeping sickness.

Bayer is also supporting the WHO's Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) by means of clinical studies aimed at testing the efficacy of a combination therapy for the disease.

Links

World Health Organisation