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Cheap anti-Malaria DrugComing to AfricaLeonard Bantura, UKDaily MonitorJuly 21, 2007European medical authorities have approved modalitiesfor ensuring that a new, low-cost anti-malarial drug isfast-tracked and delivered to African countries includingUganda to curb the country’s number one killer as soonas possible.The drug, dubbed Eurartesim, belongs to the ArtemisininbasedCombination Therapies (ACTs) and is acombination of dihydroartemisinin (DHA) andpiperaquine, a combination that has been proven to clearthe malaria parasites from the body in just three days.Save the Children a British charity said in a press releaseThursday that the new drug had achieved orphan status inEurope at the 8 th meeting of the Committee for OrphanMedical Products of the European Agency for theEvaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA) that tookplace late last month. The granting of the “orphan drug”status is designed to encourage the development of drugsthat are necessary but would be prohibitivelyexpensive/un-profitable to develop under normalcircumstances.Mr. Marco Corsi, the medical director of Sigma TauIndustrie Farmaceutiche Reunite S.p.A. (Italy), which isdeveloping the drug, said the achievement could allow aquicker submission to the health authorities in endemiccountries.“Therefore, this drug is likely to get onto national antimalarialdrug policies much quicker. This is very goodnews for sub-Saharan Africa but more so for Ugandabecause this drug is administered once a day for threedays and an adult dose is likely to cost less than one USdollar,” said Dr. Corsi.Dr. Ambrose Talisuna, field coordinator of the AfricanArtekin Malarial Trial that compared Eurartesim toCoartem said: “Any new, cheap and easy to administeranti-malarial drug is indeed good news.” He said recentassessments confirm the persistence of endemic malariawith an estimated 400 million cases and 1.5-2.7 milliondeaths per year. In sub-Saharan Africa alone,plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria,is responsible for approximately 220 million cases andone million deaths per year, 75 per cent of them beingchildren under 5 years old.According to the press release, Eurartesim was firstdeveloped in China. A clinical developmentprogramme was agreed between HollykinPharmaceutical and Guangzhou University (China),The University of Oxford in the UK, the Medicines forMalaria Venture (MMV), and Sigma-Tau IndustrieFarmaceutiche Riunite SpA to support the internationalregistration of the drug.The drug is said to have a simpler dosing scheme thanCoartem, which experts say will aid better complianceto avoid the development of resistance.☻☻☻☻☻☻TZ to Get Cheaper MalariaDrugReuters, LondonDaily MonitorJuly 23, 2007Former US President Bill Clinton is launching aprogramme to make subsidized malaria drugs availablein Tanzania in a test scheme that could serve as ablueprint for Africa s a whole.The project, that was expected to be announced later onSunday in Dar es Salaam Tanzania, will make lifesavingartemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drugsavailable at 90 per cent less than the current marketprice to a national drug wholesaler, which will thendistribute them to rural shops.Malaria caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes,kills up to 3 million people a year world-wide andmakes 300 million seriously ill.Ninety percent of deaths are in Africa south of theSahara, mostly among young children.Many of those lives could be saved with modern ACTdrugs, which are far more effective than oldertreatments such as chloroquine.But a price of up to $8 to $10 per treatment puts themout of reach for many people. Although drugmakersincluding Novartis and Sanofi-Aventis SA havereduced the cost of ACT medicines to around $1 whenthey are used in the public sector, the majority ofAfricans buy their medicine privately.In the case of Tanzania, around half of patients withmalaria seek treatment through private drug shopsinstead of public health facilities, and most are unableto afford the ACT drugs.Continued on page 24-23- Traditional African Clinic July/August 2007