Australia: Julie Bishop ‘must act’ on tuberculosis vow
JULIE Bishop is under fire for being slow to release up to $10 million to help develop and trial a new tuberculosis treatment, as the Abbott government announces a three-year assistance package to combat the disease in Papua New Guinea.
The Foreign Minister announced in June that $30m from the
government’s foreign aid budget would go towards funding
health and medical research, with $10m set aside for new medical
products for high-burden diseases in the region such as TB.
Researchers
have told The Australian the government immediately
needs to release these funds or risk seeing an
“Ebola-style problem” on the nation’s
doorstep.
Part of the funding will support the
development and trial of a new TB treatment known as the PaMZ
regimen, which is more effective, shorter, cheaper and easier
than the current method.
“Ms Bishop’s
commitment was a recognition that drug-resistant TB is right on
our border and increasing rapidly, and we urgently need to do
something about it before we have an Ebola-style problem,”
executive director of Policy Cures Mary Moran said.
“We’d love to see her recognition and commitment
come to fruition.”
The Australian
understands organisations were advised in November and December
that an announcement of further funding would occur by the end
of March.
The chief executive of the TB Alliance, Mel
Spigelman, said the not-for-profit organisation had received
funding from several agencies to bring the PaMZ regimen through
the final stage of clinical testing but quickly needed the
promised funds from the government.
“We are
hoping that the Australian government will help close the
funding gap to ensure the promise of the PaMZ regimen can be
realised as soon as possible,” she said. “Hundreds
of thousands of lives, such as those battling
multi-drug-resistant TB in the Torres Straits, are depending on
us.”
The comments come as the government
announces an extra $15m to help prevent and diagnose the disease
in PNG through better laboratory facilities, increasing hospital
and community treatment and access to transport, nutrition and
counselling services.
Ms Bishop said PNG had the
highest rate of TB infections in the Pacific, with an estimated
39,000 total cases and 25,000 new infections each year.
Source:
The Australian
