E-DRUG: Joint statement on malaria/ACT from MSF, WHO et al
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"ACT NOW" MALARIA SYMPOSIUM CO-ORGANIZERS
JOINT STATEMENT
In April 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued new
recommendations for malaria treatment, and this new approach was widely
communicated in 2002:
"WHO, on the advice of international experts, recommends the introduction
of combinations of drugs to replace single drugs in the treatment of
Plasmodium falciparum malaria. WHO recommends in particular the use of
drug combinations containing artemisinin compounds?artemisinin-based
combination therapy?ACT for short." This change is particularly critical
in countries where resistance to currently used drugs is rising, leading to
increased mortality. Today, over two years since expert consensus was
reached on ACT, the implementation of this recommendation remains limited,
and ACT is available only to a fraction of the people who need it. As a
result, vast numbers of malaria patients, particularly in Africa, continue
to receive ineffective treatment and many die unnecessarily. Malaria
continues to be the leading cause of death among children under five in
Africa.
M�decins Sans Fronti�res (MSF), the Mailman School of Public Health of
Columbia University, WHO, and UNICEF are co-organizing a symposium at
Columbia University in New York City, April 29-30, 2004, to address the
challenges of implementing ACT. The meeting focuses on how to make ACT a
reality for the people who live in parts of the world where malaria
continues to claim the lives of more than one million people each year. The
event will bring together policy makers, researchers, medical care
providers, suppliers, and buyers of ACT, from both endemic and donor
countries, to help overcome remaining barriers and speed up the use of ACT.
Despite consensus on the need to implement ACT, important barriers to the
widespread use remain:
� the lack of adequate funding to ensure a sufficient supply of ACT and
access for patients to this more expensive treatment;
� the lack of urgency and political will among international and
national policy makers, donors, intergovernmental institutions, and
non-governmental organizations to help implement more expensive malaria
treatment;
� the long lead times involved in scaling up production of ACTs.
These obstacles can and must be surmounted with a sense of urgency
commensurate with the magnitude of the malaria crisis.
Participants at this symposium have an important role to play in helping to
provide more effective malaria treatment to those in need, particularly
recognizing that most people are treated for malaria at home or in their
communities. By working cooperatively to better identify and understand
the nature of the existing barriers to ACT implementation and by developing
strategies to overcome them, the co-organizers hope this symposium will
contribute to turning the tide against this preventable and treatable
disease. Urgent solutions need to be found to support changes in national
protocols in endemic countries, to fund effective treatment, and to ramp up
the production of ACTs. The co-organizers of this event recognize that
expanding access to ACT is increasingly a matter of life or death for
people at risk of malaria, and therefore are committed to discontinuing
support for the use of ineffective medicines and actively working toward
the implementation of ACT as quickly as possible.
It is time to ACT NOW.
Signed,
M�decins Sans Fronti�res (MSF), the Mailman School of Public Health of
Columbia University, WHO, and UNICEF