E-DRUG: DNDi on WHO's Call to Halt MalariaMonotherapy
-----------------------------------------------------
For more information, contact DNDi's Ann-Marie SEVCSIK at
(amsevcsik@dndi.org; 1-646-258-8131 or +41 (0)79 814 9147)
DNDi Welcomes WHO's Call to Halt Malaria Monotherapy
Geneva, Switzerland, January 20, 2005: The Drugs for Neglected Diseases
initiative (DNDi) welcomes the warning issued by the World Health
Organization (WHO) to stop selling artemisinin as a monotherapy for
malaria, and thus, to prevent the development of resistance to the drug.
It is a timely warning and will encourage the international community to
treat malaria with medicines that actually work.
"These new guidelines are vital to ensuring that patients receive
effective medications now and in the future," said Dr. Bernard Pecoul,
Executive Director of DNDi. "While the world waits for new drugs for
malaria, fixed-dose artesunate combinations are the way forward. With
their greater availability, the issue of curing patients is now not just
technical or medical, but political."
Two new fixed-dose, artemisinin-based combination therapies (FACTs) -
artesunate-amodiaquine (AS/AQ) and artesunate-mefloquine (AS/MQ) - have
been developed by DNDi and will be available by the end of this year.
These tablets, which will join Novartis' Coartem as FACTs available to
patients, offer patients greater choice and will cost approximately 50%
less compared to current ACTs.
DNDi's innovative FACT Project has brought together academic, public and
private partners from around the world. Europe's leading drugmaker,
sanofi-aventis, will develop AS/AQ for sub-Saharan Africa and Indonesia;
and Farmanguinhos, the public pharmaceutical branch of the Oswaldo Cruz
Foundation, will produce AS/MQ for Latin America.
To date, 43 sub-Saharan countries have adopted ACTs in their malaria
treatment protocols, but only 15 have actually begun to implement the
change, and only a handful have done so on a national level. WHO's call
will encourage the others to actively pursue the implementation of ACTs.
See the WHO press release on the net:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr02/en/index.html