[Ip-health] Health experts: combination pills for stroke and heart attack key for developing world

[robert weissman]

Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP), a partnership between the
Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health,
the World Bank, the WHO, Population Reference Bureau, supported by a
grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: low-cost combination
pills for stroke and heart attack are a key health need for the
developing world.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/l-php040506.php

May 6, 2006

Contact: Udani Samarasekera
pressoffice@lancet.com <mailto:pressoffice@lancet.com>
44-207-424-4949
Lancet <http://www.thelancet.com>


  Project highlights priorities for global disease control

A Public Health paper in this week's issue of The Lancet summarises the
key messages from the Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP).

DCPP was launched in 2001 to identify policy changes and intervention
strategies for the health problems of low- and middle-income countries.
Nearly 500 experts from 34 countries have contributed to what is the
world's largest health policy study to date. The mega-project is a
partnership between the Fogarty International Center of the U.S.
National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, the WHO, Population
Reference Bureau, supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.

In the paper the authors list the four important health challenges that
face the world:

   1. High levels and rapid growth of cardiovascular, cancer and chronic
      respiratory diseases in developing countries
   2. The HIV/AIDS pandemic
   3. The threat of a successor to the influenza pandemic of 1918
   4. The high levels of mortality and disability from malaria,
      tuberculosis, diarrhoea, and pneumonia.

The authors recommend that existing cost-effective interventions need to
be adopted on a much wider scale to tackle these threats. Serious
control of malaria, tuberculosis and prevention of new HIV-1 infections
will be central to gains in sub-Saharan Africa. Higher tobacco taxes and
low-cost "polypill" treatment for those with existing stroke or heart
attack will be important for the control of cardiovascular disease and
stroke. For the HIV/AIDS epidemic, treating sexually transmitted
diseases and targeting condom distribution programs at high-risk
populations such as sex workers are effective, low cost interventions
state the researchers.

Author Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan, Resources for the Future, Washington,
DC, USA, concludes that "the next two decades could transform health in
developing countries, but that will depend on controlling the diseases
responsible for the greatest number of deaths and disability. This
report provides much needed evidence on the most affordable and widely
practicable interventions". (Quote by e-mail; does not appear in
published paper)