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When Jawahira was first diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB), the private clinics she visited in Afghanistan only gave her painkillers. These visits were not only ineffective, but also costly. The doctors she saw were far from her home and the price for each visit, which she paid out-of-pocket for, was steep.
After being referred to the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) TB hospital in Kandahar, she finally received the treatment she needed in order to fully recover—at no cost. MSF’s TB hospital is the only medical facility providing advanced TB care in southern Afghanistan. In fact, around the world, we are one of the largest non-governmental providers of TB treatment.
Our work in this area could not be more urgent: tuberculosis cases saw an alarming uptick in 2021 for the first time in two decades, according to a report released by the World Health Organization (WHO). MSF provides lifesaving care to treat TB—including drug-resistant forms of the disease. Beyond providing care, MSF is dedicated to broadening access to TB medication by advocating for lower drug costs.
Jawahira’s story is just one of many from our patients that demonstrate the barriers that people face when seeking proper treatment for TB in Afghanistan and beyond.
For people with drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), treatment is even harder to access. Only one in every three people with DR-TB are receiving care, partially due to the high cost of newer, more effective TB drugs. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Two key drugs to treat DR-TB, bedaquiline and delamanid, are currently under patents by Johnson & Johnson and Otsuka that will soon expire. These companies have the power to prioritize patients over profits by allowing these patents to expire, refraining from filing for new ones, and easing the terms of restrictive licenses. Together, these actions will make generic versions easier to formulate and result in lower costs.
As tuberculosis continues to spread, MSF is calling on these drug companies to make treatment for DR-TB more readily available for everyone—no matter where they live or how much money they have.
This email was sent from the U.S. section of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care.
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