Drugs

Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are the most effective drugs currently available for treating malaria. New cheaper ACTs need to be developed and strategies to deliver them need to be implemented and evaluated so they can be accessed by the people who need them. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Medicines for Malaria Venture are helping to develop new drugs; while the President's Malaria Initiative, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the World Bank's Booster Program for Malaria Control in Africa are working with Ministries of Health on delivery and access issues.

In addition to artemisinin-based combination therapies, pregnant women can be helped by administering at least two monthly treatment doses of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. More than 70 percent of pregnant women in Africa attend antenatal clinics at least once during their pregnancy. A regime of SP helps protect pregnant women from possible death and anemia and also prevents malaria-related low birthweight in infants, which causes about 100,000 infant deaths annually in Africa. Malaria No More will work with these and other groups to coordinate the research and distribution of ACTs and SP.