* WHO issues first report on 17 neglected tropical diseases
* Diseases cost billions a year in lost productivity
* GlaxoSmithKline announces de-worming drug donation
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Tropical diseases that affect mainly poor people cost billions of dollars in lost productivity annually and companies must be encouraged to make medicines to treat them, the World Health Organisation said on Thursday.
The United Nations agency, in its first report on neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), urged governments and donors to invest more in tackling 17 diverse infections often shunned by researchers, which can cause blindness, heart damage and death.
It said the diseases often cost only pennies to treat. They include Chagas disease, which affects about 10 million people in Latin America, and dengue fever, another virus transmitted by infected mosquitos which the WHO said was rapidly spreading worldwide and now poses a risk to developed countries.
"Neglected tropical diseases blight the lives of a billion people worldwide and threaten the health of millions more," WHO director-general Margaret Chan said in the report, "Working to overcome the global impact of neglected tropical diseases".
"Production of medicines used to treat NTDs must be made more attractive to companies that manufacture generic pharmaceuticals," she added.
Leading drug makers have already provided high-quality medicines free of charge for hundreds of millions of poor people suffering from such diseases, mainly in remote areas of Latin America, Asia and Africa, according to the WHO.
Earlier on Thursday, GlaxoSmithKline <GSK.L> announced it would donate up to an extra 400 million doses of its de-worming drug albendazole, at a cost of some 12 million pounds ($19 million) a year, to the WHO to treat African children at risk of intestinal worms. [ID:nLDE69C1FW]
The WHO said in a statement that officials from pharmaceutical companies were due to announce fresh commitments at a one-day meeting being held at WHO headquarters.
The cost of treating a patient with lymphatic filariasis using ivermectin and albendazole, donated by Merck <MRK.N> and GlaxoSmithKline respectively, ranges from just five to 10 U.S. cents, according to the report.
The mosquito-borne disease causes intestinal worms and disfigures limbs and genital parts, costing an estimated $1.3 billion a year in lost productivity in Africa and South East Asia, it said.
So-called "preventive chemotherapy", often in the form of tablets taken once once or twice yearly, is the best public health strategy, the WHO said. The excellent safety record of such drugs means that diagnosis of individual patients is not needed in areas where diseases are highly endemic.
Pesticides should be used judiciously to control vector-borne neglected tropical diseeases, it said.
Southern Sudan has reported recurrent outbreaks of visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease also known as kala-azar, with some 6,363 cases and 303 deaths recorded in the past year, the WHO said last week.
That was more than six times the number of cases in recent years in the oil-producing region, hit by insecurity and weak health services, due to vote on Jan. 9 on whether to secede.
The WHO appealed for $700,000 to stem the outbreaks there by training health personnel and stepping up detection of symptoms.
"Before the situation becomes uncontrollable, we must do something about it," said Dr. Abdi Aden, head of WHO's office for southern Sudan, noting that the disease has a 95 percent mortality rate if not treated on time.
(Editing by Noah Barkin)
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