Lilly helps fight MDR-TB in China

Eli Lilly and Co, the US pharmaceutical company, is a partner with authorities in Qinghai province in the fight against an infectious disease called multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

With an investment of 1.12 million yuan, the two-year program involves Lilly China, the Qinghai Provincial Health Bureau and Qinghai Center for Disease Control.

The partners will provide training for tuberculosis (TB) healthcare professionals in 20 counties, and increase MDR-TB education and awareness for citizens in the province.

MDR-TB is a type of tuberculosis that occurs when medicines used to treat TB are misused or mismanaged, resulting in a more drug-resistant strain. It often develops in patients who do not complete the traditional treatment course for TB.

The spread of TB and MDR-TB has become a daunting challenge for Qinghai province. It has about 15,000 patients with active TB viruses, and 3,600 new cases each year. About 80 percent of the patients live in rural areas of the province.

To fight the TB crisis, the local government of Qinghai province increased annual spending on TB control and prevention to 17.4 million yuan in 2008, up from 50,000 yuan in 2000.

The province is also seeking active cooperation with foreign organizations and enterprises to contain the spread of the disease.

Lilly's MDR-TB program in Qinghai will benefit an estimated 2 million to 3.5 million people in the province.

China has the second-highest number of TB cases in the world after India, with 2.58 million TB patients. One-fourth of the world's MDR-TB patients are in China, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

"What we are trying to do is not just to give resources, but also create a working model for provinces like Qinghai to copy for a system that will go beyond the project," Lilly China President David Ricks said.

The Qinghai program is part of Lilly's MDR-TB Global Partnership initiated in 2003 with 18 partners on five continents to increase education about MDR-TB, train health professionals and transfer the knowledge required to manufacture antibiotics closer to patients.

Lilly has transferred its manufacturing technology for capreomycin, a medicine produced by Lilly to treat MDR-TB, to Hisun Group, a Chinese pharmaceutical company in Zhejiang province.

"We hope that, ultimately, patients can see a nurse or doctor who knows more about how to treat MDR-TB, can help explain why they need to take medicine and tell them why they need to complete their medical course," Ricks said.

In September 2008, Lilly and the Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum launched an innovative tool kit to involve more Chinese companies in the fight against TB.

Since TB can seriously impact business, reducing productivity, the goal of the tool kit is to help Chinese companies and business leaders increase activities to promote TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment in the workplace.

Lilly China is also working with the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. The coalition is an international organization that mobilizes business communities to fight diseases such as TB globally.

The Lilly China partnership also involves an initiative to increase TB education efforts among primary and middle school students in four ethnic minority counties in Qinghai province.

(China Daily 10/19/2009 page10)