Person of the Week: Dr. Bernard Pecoul

March 2, 2007 — -- Dr. Bernard Pecoul has fought tirelessly to eradicate malaria in the developing world.

The former head of Doctors Without Borders is now the director of the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative, whose goal is to make medicine accessible and affordable, especially to children throughout the world.

"Five hundred million people are affected every year, which is huge. You have to imagine that every day 3,000 children are dying from malaria, which is totally unacceptable," Pecoul said.

He recently convinced the giant drug manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis to produce a new anti-malarial medication without a patent, which will keep costs down.

He said a full course of treatment of the new drug ASAQ will cost less than 50 cents for children, and less than $1 for adults.

"It is a combination of two existing drugs in one tablet. … I'm sure that this new drug will save lives," Pecoul said. "The children under 5 are really the main target … because they are the ones dying from the disease … They develop very severe cases rapidly. They die within a few days."

Throughout his career, Pecoul has worked in refugee camps in Honduras, Peru and parts of Africa, where he saw suffering firsthand.

"I need to try to contribute somewhere to the improvement of the situation for people living in [a] very difficult population, neglected population," he said.

While ASAQ is the first medication to be launched from his initiative, Pecoul said there is still much to be done.

"We need to be able to use the best of the science, the best of the people, the best of the knowledge and translate this knowledge and do something very practical for the use of people suffering from these diseases in developing countries," he said.