Subsidies Help Get Modern Malaria Drugs To Millions In Africa

Enlarge Sunday Alamba/Associated Press

Ayo Bello grabs a box of malaria medication at a pharmacy in Lagos, Nigeria. A pilot project by the Global Fund has helped private pharmacies and clinics sell top quality malaria drugs at wholesale prices in Nigeria and seven other African countries.

Ayo Bello grabs a box of malaria medication at a pharmacy in Lagos, Nigeria. A pilot project by the Global Fund has helped private pharmacies and clinics sell top quality malaria drugs at wholesale prices in Nigeria and seven other African countries.

Two years ago the United Nations' Global Fund launched an experiment that aimed to reduce the cost of malaria drugs in parts of Africa where they're needed most.

The idea was to subsidize the cost of drugs, sometimes making them available even cheaper than wholesale.

Did it work? The results for the first phase of the pilot were unveiled yesterday in Washington, and they looked pretty good at least for the short time the project has been up and running.

The Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria program, or AMFm, had brought more than 100 million doses of malaria drugs to clinics and pharmacies in 2011. It also increased access to the top malaria medicines by 26 to 52 percent in six countries.

How many lives did the AMFm save? Researchers can't say yet because AMFm ran for only a year and half in most countries. Many health officials at the meeting worried this unanswered question will give the Global Fund a reason to scale back or terminate the successful pilot.

Malaria kills about 650,000 people each year. Nearly 90 percent of those who die are are children.

Artemisinin-combination therapies, or ACTs, are highly effective at curing malaria, but in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, these drugs aren't available in private clinics, where the majority of patients are treated. Counterfeits are another big problem.

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Subsidies Help Get Modern Malaria Drugs To Millions In Africa