Campaign that Drastically Drops the Price of Malaria Drugs

A New Campaign that Drastically Drops the Price of Malaria Drugs

By Courtney Peterson

April 23, 2009

International health agencies and the European governments have announced their campaign to drive down the cost of malaria medication to 20 cents. The initial budget will be $225 million and will be run by the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria (AMFM).

Malaria continues to kill over 1 million people each year, the majority of those people being children. Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria partnership describes this new campaign as a “triumph of international cooperation.”

The United States is the world’s most substantial donor to the fight against malaria, but they have yet to sign up for this project. Dr. Bernard Nahlen, deputy coordinator of the President's Malaria Initiative, has said that he wants more studies proving that subsidies would work before investing hundreds of millions of dollars.

America-based drug companies have resisted lower their wholesale price from $4 per unit to $1 per unit price. If the prices can be lowered to a single dollar, donor funds would cover 95 cents of the cost. African and Asian villages would only pay 5 cents for the drug, and their mark up price should not exceed 20 cents. That would lower the cost for the average patient from $8 to the 20 cent price. This will be a huge savings for the poorer regions of African and Asia, the areas where the disease tends to flourish.

The money for this program was raised by slightly raising airline ticket fees. It was a collaborative effort by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Roll Back Malaria partnership, the British, Norway, and Netherlands governments and the Unitaid partnership of 30 different countries.

Within the regions where malaria is an issue, drugs are normally handed out at public health clinics. However, since cerebral malaria can be fatal to children within 24 hours of onset, these drugs must be sold within walking distance of every village. The lower prices predicted by this campaign will make wide drug placement a more plausible goal.