Question: As far as I know the problem with disease in poorer countries is that they can't buy the afford the medicane, not that we don't have it so how does your work help?

Deuan Jones answered on 21 Jun 2010:

It depends on the condition. For the disease I work on there are only 4 drugs and none of these work in all of the areas where the disease occurs or at all stages of the disease. One of the drugs can kill more than 10% of the patients on it’s own – so it’s really not a good situation! In addition resistance to these drugs is rising and it’s probably only a short amount of time before we start finding even the drugs we do have stop working.

There is definitely one drug I know of for the disease I work on that is very expensive to make and so there is a problem with money. But that’s not always the case.

There are other problems in developing countries where I don’t think science is the answer. For example we hear sometimes people saying we need to genetically modify crops to feed more people etc. But we already have enough food to feed everyone on the planet – the problem is distribution – the fact that people who really need it just don’t get it.