British MPs Call for Funding Mechanisms for Global Malaria Control Efforts, Including Advanced Market Commitment Plans

A group of British members of Parliament have called for financial initiatives to fund global efforts to combat malaria, including advanced market commitment plans to encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines for the disease, the Guardian reports. Speaking on Thursday at the release of a report by the British All Party Parliamentary Malaria Group, Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn said that there is a need to "make sure that the right drugs and treatment are available and affordable." Under an AMC plan, donors would pledge to buy vaccines that are being developed at a preferential price when they are available. This would create a financial incentive for drug companies to conduct more research and development, as well as broaden their vaccine production facilities, Jon Pender, director of government affairs at GlaxoSmithKline, said (Barriaux, Guardian, 3/16). Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations at their summit in July 2006 did not act on an opportunity to adopt an advance market commitment plan aimed at funding the development of vaccines for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria (GlobalHealthReporting.org, 2/7). Advocates also recommend the establishment of a global subsidy that would pay drug companies to manufacture artemisinin-based combination therapies. Recipient countries would order the medicines through whichever drug company they choose, but the subsidy operator would provide most of the funding to the drugmaker. This will enable countries to pay less for ACTs (Guardian, 3/16). A study published in the March/April 2006 issue of Health Affairs concluded that a commitment from the international community of roughly $300 million for a global subsidy could save up to 25,000 lives monthly and curb the development of drug resistance (GlobalHealthReporting.org, 4/12/06). A subsidy is expected to be launched in November, according to the Guardian (Guardian, 3/16). The All Party Parliamentary Malaria Group said that $3 billion annually is required to help fund malaria prevention and treatment worldwide and that efforts to increase drug access need to be accompanied by a greater provision of insecticide-treated nets and indoor insecticide spraying (Reuters UK, 3/15).