SENEGAL: Anti-malaria ACTs expected for rainy season once funds approved

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

DAKAR, 16 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Senegal plans to switch to more expensive but more effective artemisinin-based anti-malaria drugs before the rainy season kicks off this year, with the help of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a senior health official said on Wednesday.

Moussa Thior, who heads the country’s National Programme to Fight Malaria (PNLP), told IRIN that the Global Fund had approved Senegal’s request for US $33 million to fight malaria and that the West African country was now waiting for the five-year grant to be signed.

Earlier this month, Global Fund experts admonished Senegal for the poor performance of its 2003 anti-malaria programme. The project had been set to run for five years but funding was discontinued following a two-year progress report.

Thior, who took over the country’s battle against malaria six months ago, said the new project is a separate endeavour which will learn from past shortcomings. “We will be evaluating progress constantly,” he said.

Malaria, which causes a million deaths a year, 90 percent of them in Africa, is on the rise largely due to the growing resistance of plasmodium falciparum, the most deadly strain of the disease, to conventional anti-malarial drugs such as chloroquine or amodiaquine.

Under the project, the PNLP planned to make artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs) available at around the same cost as the current bitherapy treatment on offer in Senegal, a quinoline compound plus an antifolate offered at health centres at 250 CFA (50 US cents) per treatment.

Artemisinin is extracted from the root of a plant grown in China and Vietnam, and anti-malarial treatments incorporating the relatively new drug are proving more effective than many traditional drugs.

ACTs can be 10 times as expensive as traditional anti-malarial drugs, but Thior said “the government has asked that anti-malaria medicine be made accessible to all.”

Senegal, where one out of three people seeking medical treatment is suffering from malaria, has been using a combination of amodiaquine plus sulfadoxine-pyrimethanine to treat the mosquito-borne disease.

Thior said 400,000 to 600,000 long-lasting impregnated bed nets will also be provided each year at subsidised rates.

But he said there was no question of providing the nets, which can cut malaria by half, free of charge despite high-profile appeals here this week by Senegalese music legend Youssou N'Dour for millions of free bed nets for Africa.

“I'm opposed to free bed nets, it would be a catastrophe,” he said.

Thior, a former district chief doctor involved in grassroots campaigns in favour of public health, said giving away nets would disrupt supply circuits and have a negative impact on the importance of nets in fighting malaria among the people who need them most.

"People must be asked to make at least a minimum contribution to community health efforts,” he said.

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