A Small Charity Takes Lead in Fighting a Disease

Diseases that are common among the world’s poor, such as black fever, are not on Big Pharma’s priority list. For the first time, with the help of the Gates Fund, a small charity is bringing a cure to market. Despite skepticism from other researchers, the non-profit Institute for OneWorld Health, based in San Francisco, tackled black fever, the second largest parasitic killer in the world after malaria. The institute had to convince US tax enforcers that the enterprise was non-profit and the World Health Organization to hand over decades-old data that had been shelved by corporate researchers. With approval expected in fall of 2006, the next obstacle is distribution: The drug paromomycin will cost $10 in a country where thousands still die from measles, which can be prevented with a 15-cent vaccination. Meanwhile, with the help of major philanthropists, the notion of non-profits finding cures for neglected diseases is less farfetched. – YaleGlobal