PHA-Exch> Global partners launch $225 mln malaria drugs scheme

[Claudio Schuftan]

> http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LH128103.htm
>
> Global partners launch $225 mln malaria drugs scheme
> 17 Apr 2009 12:26:12 GMT
>
> OSLO, April 17 (Reuters) - A partnership backed by nearly 30 governments
> around
> the world launched a $225 million programme on Friday to subsidise malaria
> drugs
> and help combat a disease that kills nearly a million people each year.
>
> The public-private partnership, supported by organisations such as the Bill
> and
> Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to help healthcare providers buy new, more
> effective malaria drugs at significantly lower prices.
>
> "The age when the world had effective drugs against infectious diseases but
> let
> millions die each year because they couldn't afford them is over," said
> Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in a statement from the
> partnership.
>
> Nearly 90 percent of malaria victims are children and more than 2,000
> children
> are killed each day, mainly in Africa and Asia, by the mosquito-borne
> disease,
> said the partnership, called the Affordable Medicines Facility - Malaria.
>
> Managed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the
> project
> aims to make life-saving drugs known as Artemisinin-based combination
> therapies,
> or ACTs, available to millions of people.
>
> ACTs are currently 10 to 40 times more expensive when sold over-the-counter
> than
> the older drugs to which the malaria parasite has become resistant.
>
> "The new initiative will reduce the price of effective malaria drugs so
> they can
> drive older, ineffective drugs out of the market," the partnership said.
>
> The World Health Organisation recommends ACTs as first-line treatment for
> uncomplicated malaria, but they currently only account for one in five
> treatments and are provided almost entirely by the public sector, the
> partnership said.
>
> Financial support for the $225-233 million cost of medicines over the first
> two
> years of the scheme will be shared by Britain and UNITAID -- a French
> initiative
> supported by Norway and 27 other nations to finance drugs and diagnostics
> against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
>
> Technical support will come from the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, a group
> of
> public and private institutions such as the World Bank, UNICEF, the Dutch
> government, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton
> Foundation.
> The partnership said several other organisations and governments could also
> contribute additional funding.
>
> "This partnership is an important part of the global effort to control
> malaria
> worldwide," Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund,
> said.
> "There is no reason any child should die of malaria anymore."
>
> (Reporting by John Acher; Editing by Sophie Hares)
>
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