The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7481 p640
8 December 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

World Health Organization focuses on paediatric medicines

Research into children’s medicines is to receive a boost with the launch of a World Health Organization campaign, unveiled at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, this week.

The “Make medicines child size” campaign is a global programme that builds on a resolution agreed at the WHO’s annual meeting earlier this year to improve medicines for children.

Over the next five years the WHO will work with industry and other stakeholders to address gaps in research into medicines for tuberculosis, for tuberculosis/HIV co-infection and for neglected conditions (such as schistosomiasis, filariasis and soil-transmitted worms).

The WHO also calls for the development of paediatric fixed drug combinations — products containing a number of drugs formulated in an appropriate fixed ratio — for treatment of malaria, HIV and tuberculosis, and of new treatments to tackle neonatal infections.

Coinciding with the campaign is the publication of a list of 206 medicines that the WHO deems essential for providing quality health care for children.