Dr. Christo van Niekerk, Senior Director Clinical Development at the TB Alliance, took the INNOV8 audience on a historical journey from the earliest evidence of Tuberculosis – in the spinal vertebrae of Egyptian mummies – to where we stand today; faced with a global epidemic.
The bacterial disease faded from public consciousness in the late 20th century but has gained visibility in recent years with an alarming new development; the increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistant (MDR-TB), and extensively-drug resistant (XDR-TB) tuberculosis strains. Dr. van Niekerk adds that the current strains of drug-resistant TB is a man-made phenomenon due to factors such as inappropriate prescribing, poor adherence to the treatment regimen, and that it can also be seen as “a symptom of a failing health system.”
“Current treatment is based on dated drugs and treatment of 6 months. Up to a third of world’s population are currently infected with Tuberculosis in its latent form.” Poverty, displacement, HIV/Aids, and outdated first line drugs are noted as contributing factors for the fact that, in 2005, more people developed TB than in any other time.
“An estimated 1.6 million people die of TB a year – that is one person every 20 seconds. South Africa is suffering under a significant epidemic with statistics higher than that of the USA and Western Europe.”
So what is being done about this alarming health risk? The TB Alliance – the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development – aims to shorten the treatment time from 6 months to two months with the ultimate goal of a mere 10 days with the overriding mission being to accelerate the discovery and development of better and affordable TB drugs. “Today, the TB Alliance has two drugs in the clinical development phase, one in pre-clinical development phase, and a host of compounds in discovery to work with.” He explains TB as “a very interesting bug with the ability to remain latent in the human system until triggered by something e.g. HIV or other factors that is not always clear to researchers at the moment.”
Dr. van Niekerk goes on to compare the envisioned treatment as somewhat of a “smart bombing” where a combination of drugs will attack specific areas of the bacterial organism. “We are working among others in collaboration with the CSIR on the possibility of introducing nanotechnology as a treatment for this life-threatening disease but, although we are making progress, Tuberculosis is largely out of control on a global scale”.
For more information contact: Dr. Christo van Niekerk at:
Christo.vanniekerk@tballiance.org
Philip de Kock from Fantus Technologies is introduced as “a hard-core entrepreneur” but to me it is clear that “Mr Fantus” is a creative dreamer and innovative problem solver that happen to be an entrepreneur as well. Describing his successful business as “an interesting merger between Management Consulting and Software Engineering” one cannot help but be impressed by the easy-going, highly informative manner in which he guides listeners in explaining how it all started and where they are now. “The ultimate goal is to ensure that even Joe Soap at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder is able to do a better job and this is achieved through empowerment. Changes must be managed and the basics of running a small spaza shop or running a massive organization remains the same in principle. It is only the scale that differs”, says Philip.
He describes the introduction of the South African Excellence Foundation as a turning point in his career; “The SAEF required an automated solution for managing organizational self assessment and I volunteered to build the prototype.” In 2002 he was approached to create the tool. “When I have a new project I have to give it a name. The definition of the word ‘introspect’ immediately struck a cord and so Introspect and later Introspect Business Suite came into being.” Philip emphasizes the value of persistence and describes the various ongoing debates with his dad, Johann, as part of the fun.
