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Child-size Chagas’ treatment introduced in Brazil

1 Aug 2008

Paul Chinnock

Source: Associated Press (see original article)

A Brazilian government laboratory has announced that it will shortly begin production child-sized doses of benznidazole treatment for Chagas’ disease. The Pharmaceutical Laboratory of Pernambuco said the doses, which eliminate the need to cut up adult-sized tablets into as many as 12 pieces, will be available at an affordable cost to patients across the Americas by 2009.

The Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi) was involved in helping to set up arrangements for the production of benznidazole in Brazil, which became possible after Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Roche transferred the rights and technology for the drug to the Brazilian government last year, making the Pernambuco laboratory the drug’s sole manufacturer globally.

According to DNDi spokesman Flavio Gulherme Pontes, ‘About 5 percent of children infected die while receiving the treatment, which is very aggressive. The paediatric dose looks to reduce this death rate.’

Chagas’ disease infects more than 16 million people, all of them in the Americas, according to the World Health Organization. Estimates of the yearly death toll range from 13,000 to 50,000.

DNDi Executive Director Dr Bernard Pecoul was recently profiled in a TropIKA.net interview.