At least $18 billion is needed to get the fight against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS back on track from disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a global health fund said on February 23.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world, researchers and public health experts are casting about for older vaccines and antiviral drugs that might be used to treat the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Researchers in Australia are studying an older treatment, a vaccine once used to prevent tuberculosis called the bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), which has been used for about 100 years.
A newly approved three-drug treatment for tuberculosis will be available in 150 countries including India and South Africa, priced at $1,040 for a complete regimen, more than twice the cost proposed in the past by advocacy groups for other treatments.
Independent experts of an FDA advisory panel voted in favor of the not-for-profit TB Alliance’s treatment for drug resistant tuberculosis, as a part of a three-drug combination regimen.