From: Catherine Borden <[log in to unmask]>
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To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [WASAN] The high cost of malaria deaths - SciDev.net

The high cost of malaria deaths

16 January 2004
Source: The Lancet

Outdated drugs are helping fuel a rise in malaria worldwide, according to
an international group of experts writing in The Lancet. They say that
although effective treatments are available, pressure on the World Health
Organisation (WHO) to cut costs means that the vast majority of patients
are given old treatments — to which many are now resistant.

Through its Roll Back Malaria campaign, the WHO aims to halve deaths from
the disease — which kills a million people a year — by 2010. But it
acknowledges that the burden of malaria is increasing.

While the WHO itself recommends the newer artemisinin-class combination
therapies (ACT), which can successfully treat 90 per cent of more of
patients, these are costly in comparison to the older drugs such as
chloroquine. Poor countries asking the WHO-backed Global Fund to pay for
ACT are often refused, and forced to accept the older drugs, say the
authors. Tens of thousands of children are dying every year as a direct
result of these decisions, they say.

The group is calling for the WHO to publish guidelines for treatment.

Link to opinion article in The Lancet*
* Free registration is required to view this article
Reference: The Lancet 363, 237 (2004)

http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=227&language=1



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