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can forget about that straightawayl
This is a new challenge for us!
'l
Q: I presume you are looking
for funds and partners for this
paediatric HIV project?

Yes, we are! Here as well, we will
try to convince our partners. In this
case, South Africa is a good partner
because they have a huge problem
with many children affected, and
they have very good research teams.
some groups in India and Brazil. We
Q: Whatisthenextdiseasethat
Q: Are you pleased to see what
have a very large network of scienti- you are going to look into? has been achieved
fic and academic groups all over the so far?
world.
At the beginning of the year we de-
I am very happy to see concrete re-
cided to work on paediatric HIV,
Qi Where does the moneycome sults. You may note that the 'first
with tlie same rationale as the other malaria treatment
from? we made avai-
neglected diseases we work on. New
lable -ASAQ, developedwith Sanofi
drugs have been developed for HIV,
We try to have a sustainable com- but because there are very few chil- - has been used by over 130 million
patients.
mitment, a multi-year commitment, dren affected in Europe and the We are happy about that.
from our donors. They are divided
United States, there is a lack of pala-
Q: Where do you want to see
into two major groups: public and
table, easy-to-administer, low-cost your organization
private donors. Some governments formulations for young children. from now? five years
have accepted to invest money in
While you probably have several
DNDi, among them tlie UK, Swiss,
million people infected in Africa, I want to continue
French, Spanish, and Dutch Go- you have very few in Europe - - and treatments. to deliver new
vernments, and we are also worl6ng Up to now, we have
here you can manage with very so- mainly improved existing
on funding from emerging and ne- phisticatedtreatments. InAfricayou treat-
glected-disease endemic countries cannot. When you have hundreds of ments, but the next challenge, star-
such as Brazil and India. ting with the new portfolio, is to add
children affected in one district, you new drugs - - what we call new che-
need to have adapted formulations.
mical entities. They are more ambi-
The second group is comprised of
tious and they could really support
private donors mainly large foun-
This is the new project in our port- elimination programmes.
dations such as the Bill & Melinda
folio. We will not invent or discover
Gates Foundation, Doctors Without
new drugs; we use existing drugs
Back to sleeping sickness: if only we
Borders-Me.decins Sans FrontiAres, and develop paediatric formula-
some other small foundations and had a very simple treatment, com-
tions. HIV for young children (i-3 bined with an easy test to detect the
individual donors. So it's a mix of
years old) is very severe. Following
disease at stage 1. Today, diagnosis
public and private money.
the transmission from mother to is difficult and treatment is difficult.
child, 5o% of them will die before
ff we can develop a simple test and
Q: In these times of economic
the age of 2. There are strong recom- deliver an oral treatment,
turmoil has it been difficult to mendations from WHO to start the and com-
raise money? treatment as soon as possible. Un- bine these two things with good sur-
veillance programmes,
fortunately, what is available today I am confi-
dent that we can tackle the disease.
Clearly, it has been difficult because is not adapted to the situation. As an This is the dream!
some of our partners have been example, one of the recommended
obliged to abandon or reduce their
drugs is in the form of a synip, but
contributions. The fact is that from Leaving Dr Pecours office after an
the solvent contains 4o% alcohol. hour, we can only hope that his
the very beginning, we decided to
So it has a bad taste and you need to
dreams wil7 come true. And that
diversify - - to have several donors
keep. it refrigerated all the time. For
DNDi wil7 obtain the necessary
in order to achieve a balance.
a village in Malawi, for instance, you resources to achieve its dream.