Move to make malarial drugs inexpensive

Saturday, May 1, 2010 (The Mirror Pg 13)

By Rebecca Kwei
The world celebrated World Malaria Day on Sunday, April 25, on the theme “Counting Malaria Out”.
Malaria remains a killer disease, with nearly one million people losing their lives every year.
In Ghana, malaria continues to be the leading cause of death in children under five and pregnant women.
There have been many interventions since the ‘Roll Back Malaria” initiative in1999 ,which is a combination of prevention and curative methods to reduce the malaria burden.
Among these are Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) and the use of Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) which is recommended by the WHO as the first line treatment for uncomplicated malaria.
However, most ACTs are very expensive and most Ghanaians are not able to afford it, making them resort to all kinds of medications and therapies in the treatment of malaria.
Fortunately, an initiative known as the Affordable Medicines Facility - Malaria (AMFm) is being introduced to ensure that people suffering from malaria have access to inexpensive, effective anti-malarial treatment in the form of ACTs.
The pilot project for the AMFm will begin in August this year throughout the country and last for two years.
Other countries on board the AMFm initiative are Cambodia, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
The AMFm is hosted by the Global Fund with support by UNITAID and members of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership.
This was made known at a day’s media briefing as part of activities marking this year’s World Malaria Day. It was organised by the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) in collaboration with the John Hopkins University Centre for Communication Programs — Voices for a Malaria-free Future Project in Accra.
According to Mr Sylvester Segbaya of the NMCP, although there were effective ACTs for the treatment of malaria, it was not affordable and the AMFm was a financing mechanism to ensure that the poor and vulnerable in the society get access to affordable medicines.
He explained that AMFm will negotiate with drug manufacturers to reduce the price of ACTs with the condition that sales prices must be the same for both public and private sector first-line buyers.
Once the manufacturer’s sales price has been reduced, the AMFm will then pay a proportion of this reduced price (buyer co-payment) directly to manufacturers to further lower the cost to eligible first-line buyers of ACTs purchased from manufacturers. This means that first-line buyers only pay the remainder of the sales price for the ACTs.
In addition, first-line buyers will be expected to pass the highest possible proportion of this price benefit so that patients are able to buy ACTs across the public, private and NGO sectors at a price competitive with that of less anti-malaria drugs.
Mr Segbaya said after 24 months, the AMFm pilot will be evaluated to determine whether there is the need for a global roll out.
He was optimistic that AMFm initiative will reduce deaths due to malaria and also knock off artemisinin monotherapies which are no longer effective for the treatment of malaria.