Vital drugs are either not authorized or are deemed too expensive, as cases rise.

Vital drugs are either not authorized or are deemed too expensive, as cases rise.

Rates of tuberculosis are on the rise in Europe, but countries are ill-equipped and lack access to the latest drugs targeting the worst strains.

Some patients are spending a year and a half in hospital isolation receiving old medicines instead of just six months of treatment at home, because countries do not have access to the most up-to-date therapies to cure people of the infectious disease.

In some EU countries, the latest medicines are either not authorized or are deemed too expensive to use. To effectively treat patients, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) has stepped in to help in Poland and Slovakia.

Earlier this year, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (EDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Europe was stalling in its quest to suppress tuberculosis and could miss its 2030 targets to end the disease. The agencies caution that if Europe doesn’t get a grip on the rising rates of infection with the recommended cocktail of drugs, the gains made over the last decade could be lost.

  • Killing_Spark@feddit.deEnglish
    5·
    5 months ago

    But if a private company does it, it belongs ti the private company.

    Unless you don’t believe in private ownership?

    “If I invented the means of saving lives that doesn’t make it my responsibility to actually do so. Especially if there are profits on the line”. Wow.

    Germany has a beautiful sentence in its constitution:

    Eigentum verpflichtet. Sein Gebrauch soll zugleich dem Wohle der Allgemeinheit dienen.

    Property implies responsibility. Its use shall also benefit the wellbeing of the general public.

    The thought being that while private property is a core staple of our society this is only the case because the concept of private property is seen as beneficial overall. If private property starts hurting the general public then the implied responsibilities coming with the property are not being fulfilled and the concept loses its value to society as a whole.

    • romp_2_door@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      restricting access to a cure is does not equal hurting.

      By that logic, not inventing a cure, when you could otherwise do so, is also hurting. So companies developing chronic medicines instead of cures would be actively engaging in hurt

      which does not make sense

      • Killing_Spark@feddit.deEnglish
        1·
        5 months ago

        No that’s not the same. In one case there is only the theoretical possibility of help whereas in the other case there is a realizable possibility for help. This is a big difference.