1. Drug-resistant malaria poses urgent funding need.
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INTERNATIONAL agencies , *POOR people , *SUBSIDIES , *MALARIA , *THERAPEUTICS , *MORTALITY - Abstract
This article reports on the need for international organizations and world leaders to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies yearly to ensure the world's poor have access to cutting-edge malaria treatment as strains of drug-resistant malaria spread across the African and Asian continents, according to a report by the Institute of Medicine (IoM) which was released in July 2004. The report also predicts that the malaria mortality rate in Asia and Africa could double in a few decades without widespread change in the way the disease is treated. According to IoM researchers, chloroquine, the drug now used more frequently to treat malaria, is becoming ineffective because of rapidly spreading resistance. Instead, a new treatment called artemisinin-based combination therapies, or ACTs, is recommended. The report emphasized that a centralized agency should buy such therapies from drug manufacturers at competitive prices using subsidy funds and then resell the drugs at substantially lower prices to public and private distribution organizations when malaria outbreaks occur. Professor Kenneth J. Arrow, chair of the report's authoring committee, said that without subsidies to make artemisinin-based combination therapies affordable, the world's poorest people will continue to rely on more affordable yet less effective treatment. The IoM committee said its recommended $300 million to $500 million annual subsidy should bring the price of artemisinin-based combination therapies to 10 cents to 20 cents per course and put the drugs in the hands of several hundred million people worldwide.
- Published
- 2004