Big Pharma's greed for profits, not lack of funding, delaying Ebola treatment development

Big Pharma's greed for profits, not lack of funding, delaying Ebola treatment development

At the heart of the Ebola crisis -- in which nearly 5,000 people have already died in West Africa -- is one word that frequently appears in the media: funding. ⁽¹⁾ Without enough funding, research and development regarding treatment plans don't come easy. Without enough funding, food and other resources can't get to the ill in a timely manner.

Sure, there are experimental Ebola vaccines being tested, but lack of funding is the major issue that's putting the world at a standstill, while the sick become sicker as they wait for the powers that be to come up with proper financial resources.

Well, at least that's what Big Pharma wants people to believe.

Head of WHO comes down hard on Big Pharma greed

It turns out that funding is not necessarily what is delaying the development of Ebola treatments after all.

Rather, it's Big Pharma greed, and Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), has no qualms about saying that money-hungry drug companies are responsible for the slow-moving Ebola treatment efforts. ⁽¹⁾ "A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay," she said during a recent conference in West Africa. "WHO has been trying to make this issue visible for ages. Now people can see for themselves." ⁽²⁾

Her comment speaks to the fact that Ebola didn't just start appearing on the radar screen over the past year or so. In fact, it's been around since 1976, when it was discovered in Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo). However, Chan explains that, because the disease was confined to impoverished areas in Africa, the development of a vaccine was basically considered to be moot. ⁽²⁾ Now that it's become more widespread (translation: affecting those who reside and work in cities that aren't poor), there is an incentive to take the disease more seriously.

No time for complacency or playing a numbers game

Chan's comment also comes on the heels of yet another physician who died in Sierra Leone, the fifth local doctor there to succumb to Ebola. That death reinforces the mounting severity of the disease, cases of which WHO estimates are significantly higher than what's being reported; in Liberia, for example, WHO estimates that the actual number of Ebola cases is about 2.5 higher than reported numbers. In Guinea, it is thought to be 1.5 times higher. ⁽³⁾

Sadly, there are those that continue to turn a blind eye at the desperate need to act with the urgency that is necessary to fight Ebola and more effectively tend to those affected. Chan is adamant about this, saying that WHO's arguments about the overall decline in public healthcare "have fallen on deaf ears for decades" and are now "out there with consequences that all the world can see, every day, on prime-time TV news." ⁽²⁾

The Ebola crisis, Chan says, "is the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times." ⁽²⁾
The "70-70-60" plan is hoped to be put in place by December 1, 2014, a plan whereby at least 70 percent of known Ebola cases in West Africa will be isolated, followed by a safe burial of no fewer than 70 percent of people who ultimately die. A 60-day deadline has been established as part of this plan, representing the time frame between when it is put into motion and when it should be realized. (3)