World TB Day is held each year on March 24th to build global awareness of TB—a curable disease that kills over 4,000 people each day and remains a destructive epidemic in much of the world. The day commemorates Dr Robert Koch’s discovery of the TB bacillus in 1882, which paved the way towards detecting and curing the disease.

This year marks the launch of the DCAP (Delamanid Clinical Access Program) program by Otsuka Pharmaceutical in collaboration with the Department of Health in South Africa. Delamanid was discovered and developed by Otsuka Pharmaceutical and is one of only 2 new TB medicines approved in the last 50 years. It received its first regulatory approval from the European Medicines Agency in 2014 as a medicine for treatment of adult pulmonary MDR-TB, and has since been distributed to about 45 countries for over 2,100 patients. The World Health Organization added Delamanid to its Essential Medicines List in 2015.

Otsuka is balancing the need for access and antimicrobial stewardship by working with established partners who share Otsuka’s priority of fighting and preventing drug resistance. The Delamanid Clinical Access Program (DCAP) was developed in close collaboration between Otsuka, an NGO called Right to Care, and South Africa’s Department of Health and National TB Program. The project aims to provide Delamanid through a novel, pre-approval pilot project focusing on 3 often underserved groups: 1. Children ages 12-18; 2. HIV co-infected patients, and 3. Diabetes patients with poor treatment outcomes.

Venue: Sizwe Tropical Disease Hospital, Modderfontein Road, Johannesburg
Date: 24 March 2017
Time: 09:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Members of the press who wish to attend this event are requested to register to Innocent Mohamme : innocent.mohamme@pr.mofa.go.jp

For further information contact the Media Division of the Embassy of Japan in Pretoria. Tel: (+27) 12 452 1500