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Bites and stings: the WHO and local mobilisation
[mis à jour le 10 January 2007 à 15h57]
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is going to devise a strategy to facilitate access in developing countries to anti-rabies treatments and other anti-poison serums, particularly in rural areas.
This will mean the definition of production standards, technological transfers and the formulation of good practice guides, etc. The WHO has today invited international experts, donors, NGO representatives and industrialists to Geneva to study the introduction of a plan which, it is estimated, will cost ten million dollars over a five-year period.
The WHO’s goal is to “increase local production capacities and improve the distribution of products in the most remote areas”, says Dr Howard Zuker. Every year throughout the world, eight million people need treatment for rabies because they were exposed to an animal that may be carrying the disease, but only half of them obtain it. Most deaths affect young people under the age of 15 in Asia and Africa.
The same applies to snake bites and scorpion stings. They are responsible in Africa for 20,000 deaths each year, and also for tens of thousands of physical handicaps (amputations) and neurological disorders. Two million doses are needed to cover one year’s requirements in this continent.
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