Chagas Disease :: Bayer helps WHO expand fight against Chagas Disease

The World Health Organization (WHO) is expanding the global effort to eliminate Chagas, a parasitic disease which affects an estimated nine million people, mostly children.

The expanded programme is supported by Bayer HealthCare, which manufactures nifurtimox, a drug used to treat the disease.

Bayer HealthCare has provided funds to expand WHO?s Chagas disease elimination efforts along with 2.5 million tablets free of charge, allowing the treatment of an estimated 30 000 patients over a period of five years.

For decades, Chagas disease largely affected people living in rural areas of Latin America. The symptoms of the disease are silent and often appear many years after infection. Most people who have the disease do not know they are infected. In recent years, large-scale migrations of people from Latin America to other parts of the world have turned Chagas disease into a global problem.

Blood donations and poor safety in blood banks have led to infections with Chagas disease in countries outside Latin America as some people who may be unaware they carry the infection have donated their blood to the national blood supply. As a result, the disease has now appeared in several countries in Europe and various parts of the United States of America.

“This disease still poses a threat to so many people in Latin America and now that threat has spread to other countries via blood banks lacking adequate screening of infected donors. This provision is indeed an important step towards elimination efforts of Chagas worldwide,” said Dr Mirta Roses Periago, WHO/PAHO Regional Director for the Americas Region.


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