Doctors Without Borders

Access to Essential Medicines: Ten Stories That Mattered in 2011

6. An Experimental Scheme to Subsidize Malaria Treatment Gets Off to a Shaky Start

Cost is the main reason why many people in Africa aren’t buying a more effective treatment now available for malaria. But a scheme set up to address the issue doesn’t seem to be delivering all the right results.

The World Health Organization first stated that medicines based on artemisinin—ACTs—should be used to treat malaria back in 2001, after studies showed widespread resistance had developed to the older drugs, such as choloroquine.

However, the newer recommended drugs are considerably more expensive. Public hospitals and clinics throughout Africa now provide the medicines, but these services are not accessible enough everywhere. Many people therefore buy their medicines themselves, often resorting to the cheaper, older drugs that are no longer effective.

So the aim of the Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (AMFm), was to subsidize the prices of ACTs in the private sector where many people get their medicines: in shops and private pharmacies.

Photo: Mali 2009 © Barbara Sigge/MSF