World Health Organization and Swiss drug company team up to fight malaria

In a joint effort to provide essential medicines at affordable prices, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis today signed an agreement in Geneva aimed at providing developing countries with a new treatment for malaria at cost.

Novartis will supply the new therapy, called Coartem, to WHO for use in developing countries where parasites are resistant to chloroquine and other common malaria treatments. Each tablet will cost approximately 10 cents, amounting to less than $2.50 per full treatment for adults and considerably less for children.

According to WHO, chloroquine is totally ineffective in treating malaria in over a dozen African countries and is of only marginal effectiveness in a further 20 States. "The clock is ticking," said WHO Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland at today's ceremony. "The day will soon come when chloroquine is totally ineffective throughout the continent."

As part of the agreement, WHO will appoint a group of experts to review requests for supplies and to distribute the drug through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as governments in malaria-endemic countries. Specially designed packs of Coartem have been developed to facilitate proper use by children and people who cannot read.

Dr. Brundtland observed that some developing countries will need help to purchase Coartem even at cost, but she expressed confidence that with efforts now under way to establish a global fund to fight infectious diseases "this combination therapy will save the lives of a large number of people, especially children, who otherwise would die from lack of effective medication."

"We must insist that the days of using poor anti-malarial drugs for poor people are over," the Director-General stressed.

WHO estimates that every year malaria afflicts over 300 million people and kills 1 million. Despite efforts to combat the disease, malaria continues to account for at least 20 per cent of under-five mortality in Africa, and constitutes 10 per cent of the continent's overall disease burden.