E-DRUG: Malaria not rolling back...
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[MSF press statement on the problems with malaria control; WB]
Statement from MSFs Access to Essential Medicines Campaign
WHOS ROLL BACK MALARIA BOARD NOT FACING REALITY
Midecins Sans Frontihres calls on Roll Back Malaria to acknowledge that the
global malaria strategy is badly faltering
31 March 2005, Geneva Midecins Sans Frontihres is gravely disappointed
that donor governments, WHO, UNICEF and the Global Fund, who are meeting
this week at the Roll Back Malaria Partnership board meeting, are refusing
to admit that the global malaria strategy has hit a brick wall.
In April 2001 WHO issued recommendations that encouraged malaria endemic
countries to move to more effective malaria medicines since the most
virulent forms of malaria had become resistant to older drugs in the vast
majority of countries using those drugs.
The bold new strategy was to switch from these failing treatments to
artemisinin-based combination therapy, or ACT. Replacing older drugs with
ACT will save the lives of children and adults that suffer from severe
malaria. The WHO estimates that up to two million people die from malaria
each year and that every thirty seconds a child dies of malaria in Africa.
On appearance, the move toward more effective malaria drugs seems to be a
great success more than fifty countries have decided to switch to ACT.
But there is a slight complication.
Only about nine of the 33 African countries that have decided to change
have access to ACT and have actually started using these more effective
malaria treatments.
So, in actual fact the vast majority of countries are continuing to use
drugs that no longer work. People are continuing to die because the
international community has failed to sufficiently roll out this new
strategy.
Since 2003, MSF has been warning of impending drug shortages but the
response has been a series of failures. In March 2004 all stakeholders
agreed to work toward securing the market and UNICEF agreed to take the
lead in organizing pre-purchase of drugs. But UNICEF has so far failed to
act. The Global Fund also agreed to attempt to pool country orders but no
action has been taken to date.
The problem is especially acute because of the failure of the Novartis/WHO
2001 agreement on supplying the drug Coartem. Although Novartis had agreed
to all reasonable efforts to produce quantities according to WHO
forecasts, they have failed to fulfill this commitment and instead are
rationing extremely limited quantities.
All the UN-validated ACT suppliers Cipla (India), IPCA (India), Sanofi
(France) and Novartis (Switzerland) -- have said that they require
guaranteed orders before producing the large quantities of drugs needed by
countries.
On April 1st, the underfunded, loosely defined Roll Back Malaria
Partnership will consider a proposal to do competitive tenders for large
quantities of ACTs. But they have not yet worked out where the money will
come from. Donors have not yet responded.
Will the donors and Global Fund work out financing for pre-purchase of
these desperately needed drugs, or will people with malaria continue to die
from UNICEF/Global Fund inertia?
Contact: Daniel Berman, MSF, +33 6 77 53 53 17
Daniel.BERMAN@paris.msf.org