This Week in Health News
The pharmaceutical industry plans on announcing a new partnership with the government to work together and fight “superbugs” that are resistant to current drugs on the market.
The deal will bring together 74 drug producers, 11 diagnostic test creators and 9 groups within the pharmaceutical industry across 16 countries to work together and try to solve the mystery of drug-resistant bacteria.
Drug-resistant infections have grown in seriousness over the years, mainly because of the overprescription of antibiotics, declining funding for drug research and therefore, fewer new medicines being introduced to the market.
The deal will be announced at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and will outline not only how to fight drug-resistant infections, but also how to supply antibiotics to those in need, how to better train doctors and nurses about antibiotics, increasing vaccinations, better hygiene and preventative treatments, and increased partnerships between drug companies.
Some of the companies included in this deal are Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche Group, PLC, Novartis and Pfizer.
In other health news, the second Ebola case has now been confirmed in Sierra Leone even though the outbreak was originally declared to be over. This patient is a close family member of the 22-year-old woman who passed away from Ebola recently. This patient is believed to have helped with the burial of the body, where she came into contact with the virus.
Before the death of this 22-year-old woman, no other cases had been reported for over two months. At its height, the outbreak killed over 11,000 people in West Africa.
