17 April 2009
A new cost-cutting scheme launched today is set to slash the price of the world's most effective anti-malaria drugs by a staggering 98%, saving the lives of millions of men, women and children in developing countries.
The UK is providing £40 million to a £150 million partnership fund, which will be used to negotiate cuts in prices for life-saving drugs with pharmaceutical companies in exchange for increased and predictable demand and a subsidy to increase demand.
The partnership - known as the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria - was launched today by a consortium of international donors at a meeting in Oslo.
International Development Minister Ivan Lewis said,
"Every year nearly one million people living in developing countries die from malaria - that's around 2,500 people a day, 90% of which are children. The Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria could save up to 300,000 lives every year - mostly children's - by making the best treatments available at affordable prices. That is why the UK has been a driving force behind the initiative and why we stand ready to reduce the unacceptable human burden of the disease."
The new international public-private partnership will help to reduce the price of the most effective anti-malarial treatment - artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) - that consumers buy in shops and pharmacies from up to £7 to as little as 13 pence, driving cheaper, inadequate drugs out of the market.
Currently only one in five patients in the poorest countries has access to ACTs, partly because they are 20 times more expensive to buy than older drugs which in many cases have become powerless against drug-resistant strains of the disease.
The drive comes in addition to global efforts to provide the new drugs for free in many health clinics and increase supplies of life-saving mosquito bed-nets in the worst affected areas.
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