AFRICA:Former US president Bill Clinton launched a programme yesterday to make subsidised malaria drugs available in Tanzania in a test scheme that could serve as a blueprint for the African continent.
The project will make life-saving ACT drugs available at 90 per cent less than the current market price to a national drug wholesaler, which will then distribute them to rural shops.
Malaria, caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes, kills up to three million people a year worldwide and makes 300 million seriously ill.
Ninety per cent of deaths are in Africa, south of the Sahara, mostly among young children.
Many of those lives could be saved with modern artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drugs, which are far more effective than older treatments such as chloroquine. But a price of up to $8-$10 per treatment puts them out of reach for many people.
"Not one soul should die of malaria," Clinton told reporters at a town outside Dar es Salaam after touring three medical stores. Drugmakers including Novartis and Sanofi-Aventis SA have reduced the cost of ACT medicines to around $1 when they are used in the public sector, however, the majority of Africans buy their medicine privately.
In Tanzania around half of patients with malaria seek treatment through private drug shops instead of public health facilities, and most are unable to afford ACTs.
Instead, they usually buy older drugs that are 20-30 times cheaper but are often ineffective due to drug resistance. The pilot programme by the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative is designed to test the practicality of subsidising ACT drugs as a way to increase their use, a foundation spokesman said.
Clinton, who is on a four-nation African tour of South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania, said his foundation would provide support for medical training there to honour Zambia for its impressive fight against AIDS.