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Saving lives, buying time: economics of malaria drugs in an age of resistance

Publication date: 2004

Source: Institute of Medicine, Board on Global Health

1 November 2005 | EN

The World Health Organization recommends artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) to treat malaria, but these therapies cost much more than older drugs such as chloroquine. This report by the US Institute of Medicine's Committee on the Economics of Antimalaria Drugs calls for an internationally funded global subsidy of US$300–500 million per year to provide ACTs to everyone needing them. A centralised agency should be set up, the report says, to buy ACTs from recommended producers and re-sell them at substantially lower prices to public and private organisations for distribution. Recipient countries should monitor drug distribution and the emergence of drug-resistant malaria parasites. The report is available free online. 

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