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When Medicines Fail: Rachel Nugent on Combating Drug Resistance
June 15, 2010
This week on the Wonkcast, I’m joined by Rachel Nugent, Deputy Director for Global Health here at the Center for Global Development. She is the lead author on a new CGD working group report entitled The Race Against Drug Resistance, which prescribes a global effort to halt and reverse the spread of drug resistant microbes.
In the Wonkcast, Rachel explains that the more people rely on antibiotics and other medicines, the faster disease pathogens adapt and become resistant. In rich countries, a resistant strain of staph now kills thousands per year– most from hospital-acquired infections. The situation is more dire in the developing world. Rachel tells me that there is only one effective treatment remaining for malaria, and that some strains of tuberculosis are now completely untreatable.
Often the treatments that remain effective are much more expensive, even for relatively simple diseases like bacterial diarrhea. “Antibiotics have been and should be cheap and easily available,” says Rachel. “But the cheap, easily available ones no longer work.”
Together, Rachel and I discuss the incentives that could nudge the various actors in the drug supply chain– from manufacturers to patients– to behave in ways that reduce the risk of drug resistance. The new report which Rachel co-authored suggests four practical recommendations that could form the basis for a coordinated global response to the problem of drug resistance:
- Collect and share drug resistance information across disease networks.
- Secure the drug supply chain to ensure quality products and practices.
- Strengthen national drug regulatory authorities in developing countries.
- Catalyze research and innovation to speed the development of resistance-fighting technologies.
Listen to the Wonkcast to hear our conversation. For more, read the full working group report, or visit the working group’s site. There you’ll also find a short documentary film (produced by Rachel’s co-author Emma Back) that illustrates the financial and human costs of drug resistance.
Have something to add to our discussion? Ideas for future interviews? Post a comment below, or send me an email. If you use iTunes, you can subscribe to get new episodes delivered straight to your computer every week.
My thanks to Wren Elhai for his very able production assistance on the Wonkcast recording and for a draft version of this blog post.
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2 Responses to “When Medicines Fail: Rachel Nugent on Combating Drug Resistance”
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June 16th, 2010 at 5:00 am
Dear Rachel
I must appreciate you and your team for dealing with such a challenging task.Indeed Antibiotic resistance in developing countries is like a terrorism killing huge number of people.
I would like to convey some of the ideas which I think should be taken into consideration.
1.To work in developing countries you should try to collaborate with societies and associations and not currupt gov. ministries. Help in raising the voice of these groups, bring all the stake holders on a single platform where they talk about a mutually agreed pathway to act and then approach the gov. officials.
2.My society (Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan,www.idspak.org)can work in collaboration with center for global development to execute recommendations of the working group in Pakistan.
We have extensive relationship with the medical community, associations, societies and ministry of health in Pakistan.
3.Awareness among precribers can be raised by holding seminars, workshops and conferences and I would like to invite you in our next Annual conference in March next year.
Medical college curriculum should include antibiotic resistance chapters . Studies have shown that new graduates hardly have an idea of the rational use of antibiotics
Awareness among users can be raised through tele media (very popular among masses).
Websites and print media is not useful because many millions cannot afford computers and many millions cannot read but they like to watch television in hotels, street shops, homes etc.
4.Labs are substandard so hard to get real data.Lab capacity building has to start asap.
There is no surveillance going on except for TB drug resistance.To start standard reporting and surveillance
there should be an approach to bring all the diagnostic lab and hospital directors along with microbiologists to work together on one platform.
5. A free software for selected labs on antibiotic surveillance will be a good approach.
Affiliate some of the regional labs with a reference lab as it happens in TB (supra national labs running external quality assurance program)
6.My society holds seminars/workshops and conferences regularly all over Pakistan but its frequency is limited
Issues a quaterly journal on infectious diseases of Pakistan
Members write articles in English news papers only
Society is committed to work with anyone with an intention to reduce the burden of infections and antibiotic resistance.
I shall be glad if you can consider my society as part of your team fighting antibiotic resistance issue globally and specially in Pakistan.
Dr.Altaf Ahmed
President, IDSP
Karachi, Pakistan
http://www.idspak.org
9221-34973834
July 27th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Dear Rachel ,weconguracurate the great work you do with humanity looking for the solution of there health related challengs. we agree with DR ALFAT AHAMED about the resistance of anti biotics.in developing countries its areal hinderance and we also recomend you to soport the voice of up comming associations ,non governmantal organisations,societies,which have the aim of improving heailth .
On this note rachel global ministries based in Uganda its aministry of health proffesionals that have one of its objective as sensitizing and aducating both people health proffenals in uganda and the wold about drugs their resistance,diseases ang its preventive measurers
.We request your patternship with us.
EXCUTIVE DIRECTOR RACHEL GLOBAL MINISTRIES(formally rachel ministries international)
+256783312860