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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (6265)	11/10/1998 5:54:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9523

Pfizer Gives Blindness Drug to Poor Tuesday November 10 5:01 PM ET By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Impoverished children wipe their runny eyes and spread a blinding infection to their parents, who eventually must feel their way down dusty village roads with canes. This is the vicious cycle of trachoma, a painful infection that has blinded 6 million people in the world's poorest countries. Now a drug giant is banding with health officials in five of the most afflicted nations to help them battle back. Key to the $66 million program are free doses of an antibiotic so powerful that patients may need just one dose a year, and teaching children that a mere three handfuls of scarce clean water can wash the sight-stealing germs off their faces. ''The disease is largely forgotten,'' said Paula Luff of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE - news), which is donating its pricey antibiotic Zithromax to the program in Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Tanzania and Vietnam. However, she said, ''The impact is tremendous on families and communities.'' Trachoma once was a threat worldwide. Napoleon's troops encountered it in Egypt in 1798. It blinded early Americans, and was one of the most common causes for rejecting would-be immigrants at Ellis Island - old photographs show the letter ''E,'' for ''infected eyes,'' scrawled on their collars. With improved sanitation, trachoma was eliminated from North America and Europe. But the disease remains the world's leading preventable cause of blindness, infecting 150 million people in developing countries. Infections are spread person-to-person, mostly by children as they rub red, sticky eyes or flies pick up the germs from faces unwashed because clean water is so scarce that families walk miles for a mere bucket. Repeated infections over the years scar the upper eyelid, eventually causing the thin tissue to retract so that eyelashes literally scratch the cornea. Some people wear tweezers around their necks to pluck the painful lashes, but they can grow back and scratch until they destroy the cornea, leaving patients blind. Since the 1950s, treatment has meant applying an ointment of the antibiotic tetracycline directly to the eyes twice a day for six weeks. Thick as toothpaste, the ointment stung and children in particular didn't comply. Now Pfizer-sponsored studies show that one dose of oral Zithromax, widely used in this country to fight other infections, works just as well. So Pfizer announced Tuesday that it is joining with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, a charity that researches rare or neglected diseases, to donate almost $60 million worth of Zithromax as part of a bigger trachoma-fighting plan in the five countries: -Nurses will be trained to perform a simple, 15-minute operation on heavily scarred eyes that shifts eyelashes out of the way. ''If this is done in time, the cornea isn't destroyed,'' explained the foundation's Dr. Joseph Cook. -Children will be taught to wash their faces. Pilot programs in Tanzania and Morocco showed children can wash away the germs with just three handfuls of precious water a day, said Pfizer's Luff, who helped administer the project in Morocco that already has treated 10,000 patients. -Infected patients will get Zithromax. One dose should last a year, Luff said. -Health officials will work to increase sanitation and access to clean water, using about $6 million in grants from Pfizer and the Clark foundation. The program is to run for two years in the five countries, chosen because their health ministries have made fighting trachoma a priority. Then Pfizer will debate whether to continue the effort. Massive donations of drugs, particularly multimillion-dollar sellers like Zithromax, are a rare but increasing type of philanthropy by pharmaceutical giants. The five-pronged anti-trachoma campaign has been endorsed by the World Health Organization, which hopes to eliminate the disease by 2020. dailynews.yahoo.com