 |
|
Media Centre >
Press Releases >
FIND/AUC sign agreement of collaboration
News release25 January 2008 Collaboration between FIND and the African Union Commission
In a partnership to support the elimination of African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, FIND and the African Union Commission (AUC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding today in Addis Ababa. In this collaboration, to be implemented through the Pan African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign (PATTEC) office of the AUC, advocacy activities will be intensified (a) to encourage governments of endemic countries to prioritize HAT surveillance and control, by ensuring adequate budgetary allocation (b) to create the environment necessary for sustainable introduction of new diagnostic tests in the public sectors of endemic countries, and (c) to increase community awareness of the disease. Sleeping sickness is endemic in 36 African countries, including some of the least developed in the world. It occurs in discrete foci, ranging from small villages to districts, and has a tendency to flare up when least expected. The focal nature of the disease prevents HAT from attracting national attention, and allocation of resources for diagnosis and control is rarely done. In endemic countries, the situation is compounded by lack of advocacy for sustained action at national and community levels, in contrast to HIV/AIDS, for which concerted campaigning has yielded tremendous results in turning global and national attention to the disease. In the 1990s, there was an unprecedented flare-up of HAT, to estimates of more than 300,000 cases, and 40,000 new infections each year by 1998. Subsequently, a coordinated campaign by the African Union Commission (AUC), the WHO/NTD and other NGOs brought the grave situation to the attention of the international community in 2000. A concerted surveillance and control campaign has resulted in a dramatic fall in the prevalence of the disease. The latest WHO figures put numbers at no higher than 70,000 cases a year. Active and passive surveillance have improved, and coverage of the populations at risk has been reasonably good. The observed changes in the epidemiology of HAT has necessitated more frequent updating of available data on the distribution and burden of the disease, and the target population for diagnostics and drugs in order to guide global access strategies for these tools.
An outbreak of HAT rarely attracts the attention of national health services until it has turned into a micro-epidemic in a village or focus, mainly because disease surveillance and early warning systems are either weak or lacking. Affected communities are usually oblivious of the need to go for testing, and due to cultural practices, people often seek alternative treatment until the condition gets worse. When outbreaks of HAT occur, most governments are unable to respond quickly, either because there is no specific financial allocation for HAT control in the MOHs, or those who are responsible for allocating resources for control of the disease often do not understand the extent or implications of the problem. The situation is made worse by lack of commercially available diagnostic tests. Interventions end up being sporadic, driven by external NGOs with funding from their home governments; they are militaristic in style, and of a short duration. When an epidemic is seen to be subsiding, the NGOs leave and surveillance ceases, only for the disease to re-emerge years later. While the formation of the Pan African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign (PATTEC) office in the AUC created the political goodwill that has contributed immensely to the achievements that are visible today, many endemic countries do not give adequate priority to HAT control in their health sector programmes, especially the Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps). In this latest partnership between FIND and the AUC, advocacy activities that are implemented by the PATTEC office will be intensified (a) to encourage governments of endemic countries to prioritize HAT surveillance and control, by ensuring adequate budgetary allocation (b) to create the environment necessary for sustainable introduction of new diagnostic tests in the public sectors of endemic countries, and (c) to increase community awareness of the disease. The activities will include: 1) creation of partnerships to mobilize governments and communities in endemic areas, 2) stakeholder workshops, 3) documentaries and media briefings, and 4) sub-regional meetings. The activities carried out under this new collaboration and those of WHO/NTD will generate critical data to be used by FIND and her partners in developing a robust global access plan for HAT diagnostics. The plan will be tailored to each situation and designed to ensure sustainable access to HAT diagnostics, improved management and possible elimination of the disease. FIND © Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics 2008. Click here to see the copyright notice |
||||||||
