United Nations, Nov 12: World's largest drug manufacturer Pfizer Inc., in a major boost to a UN campaign to eradicate Trachoma, will donate Zithromax antibiotic to treat 135 million people to support the goal of eliminating the blinding disease by 2020. Pfizer Chairman and Chief Executive Hank Mckinnell, while making the announcement of donating additional 135 million doses of Zithromax, declined to put a price on them.
The New York-based Pfizer would spread the donation over next five years.
In the last five years, it had provided eight million dozes at a cost of 300 million dollars to treat sufferers in impoverished countries in Asia and Africa.
"That represents a 15-fold increase and the largest donation of a patented medicine in history," said Mckinnel.
The Chairman of International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) Lou Clements said "obviously," the value of donation runs into hundreds of millions of dollars.
At present, an estimated 145 million people world wide, mostly in developing poor nations, fall victim to the disease and more than six million are blinded.
Bureau Report