A Global Subsidy: Key to Affordable Drugs for Malaria?

The global fight against malaria has been continually challenged by poor access to affordable, effective medicine. Growing resistance to chloroquine, the traditional treatment, has worsened the situation. Artemisinins, the successor therapy to chloroquine, are at least ten times more costly than the older drug. In developing countries, most malaria medicines are purchased in the private sector, where traditional aid mechanisms do not reach. So a new aid approach was needed. The Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (AMFm) will efficiently supply publicly subsidized drugs to meet public- and private-sector demand in malaria-endemic countries. If artemisinins are priced more competitively, resistance to them will be delayed.