David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Nov 13 2008 (IPS) – Funding from the European Union s Brussels headquarters for research into tuberculosis stands at about a fifth of what it should be given the EU s enormous wealth, a new study has found.
With TB killing 1.7 million people per year, health policy analysts estimate that 1.45 billion euros (2 billion dollars) needs to be devoted to research and development (R D) specifically targeting the disease every year. During 2007, however, the EU s executive arm, the European Commission, spent less than 19 million euros, according to the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, MSF).
According to the organisation, the Commission should have given at least 101 million euros to TB research last year as its fair share of work against the disease.
Spring Gombe, author of the MSF study, described this level of funding from the European Commission as a shamefully small amount considering that the EU commands 31 percent of global gross domestic product and includes a disproportionately high number of the world s most powerful economies.
In many western countries, TB commonly known as consumption during the 20th century is associated in the popular imagination with best-selling novels such as Angela s Ashes that depict a bygone era. Yet the World Health Organisation has calculated that nine million new cases of the disease occur every year.
The low level of EU funding addressing the disease is at odds with how it has returned with new faces , said Gombe, also encroaching into the Union s own territory, particularly in the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).
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Her report estimates that if the EU was paying its fair share of the sums needed to develop new medicines, it would be providing 409 million euros per annum. The low level of funding given by the Commission, which controls a seven-year scientific research programme worth 50 billion euros, is not being compensated for by finance from the national coffers of EU governments. Germany, the largest country in the Union, spent less than 19 million euros on research addressing TB last year.
MSF complained, too, that none of the Commission s finance was specifically geared towards fashioning low-cost tools for diagnosing TB, even though many in the medical community believe that these are urgently required. The lack of money for TB diagnostics means that no matter how good the R D for medicines is, in a way it is wasted research if you cannot tell if somebody has TB in the first place, said Gombe.
Her colleague Tido von Schoen-Angerer said that instead of getting better, (the TB epidemic) is getting worse as it is still spreading rapidly, particularly in Africa, together with HIV.
The underlying problems have been compounded by how some strains of TB have gained resistance to a variety of medicines. This multi-drug resistance affects about half a million patients per year.
Von Schoen-Angerer said that unless new medicines are developed, it will not be possible to treat those affected by multi-drug resistance. Public finance has to be ploughed into this area, he argued, as pharmaceutical companies have been loath to allocate resources for medicines aimed at the poor because they are unlikely to reap profits from them.
The MSF study was published Nov. 12 ahead of a two-day conference organised by the Commission on TB and other diseases connected with poverty.
Hannu Laang, a Commission official dealing with health issues, said it is a bit unfortunate that MSF had examined data for 2007, as that was the first year of its seven-year framework programme for scientific research. Some 20 million euros had been committed for research into TB last year but the Commission didn t have time to spend this entire amount during 2007. As a result, part of the sum has been spent this year, he said, with some of it devoted to improving diagnostic tools.
While it may be possible to increase funding for TB, there is always the possibility that we have to take money from somewhere else, he added. Maybe we would need to take from cancer research or diabetes research. That is a very sensitive issue.
But Carl Schlyter, a Swedish Green member of the European Parliament (MEP), said that the Commission needed to re-examine its priorities for scientific research, noting that half of the amount it had earmarked for research in the energy field is being directed towards nuclear power. If we don t solve tuberculosis, we will not get proper development in developing countries, he added. If people are sick, they are not able to work.
Stewart Cole, professor at the Global Health Institute in Geneva, argued that it would be wrong for the governments of wealthy countries to use the current financial crisis as a pretext for reducing their funding of TB research.
Every economic crisis is followed by an increase in the level of TB, he said. Poverty is a driver of TB. Uncertainty about income leads to depression, which has a major effect on the functioning of the body and unleashes a latent form of TB. This not the time to cut funding. Quite the contrary, we demand an increase in the budget.
