Current Treatments

Current Recommended Antimalarial Approaches and the Need for Affordable Drugs

While the burden of malaria is devastating, there are effective approaches to curbing the disease. In the last few decades, Plasmodium falciparum— the parasite causing the most virulent form of malaria—has become increasingly resistant to first-line drug therapies. However, Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs) show nearly 100 percent effectiveness against these drug-resistant parasites. The World Health Organization (WHO) and other public health organizations endorse early diagnosis and prompt treatment of malaria with use of ACTs, along with interventions such as use of insecticide-treated bednets, indoor residual spraying, and intermittent preventive treatment in pregnant women.

While ACTs are supported as frontline therapies because traditional first-line treatments have lost their effectiveness, the current relatively high cost of ACTs makes them inaccessible to millions of people in the developing world. There are many elements that influence the cost of these drugs, such as packaging and the non-artemisinin component of the combination drugs; but the high cost of artemisinin itself is currently a key cost driver for ACTs. This has led to the need for new and affordable artemisinin sources and antimalarial combination therapies.

OneWorld Health and its partners in the Artemisinin Project, University of California at Berkeley and Amyris Biotechnologies, are working towards developing a biotechnological solution to the global problem of access to affordable ACTs by producing a source of semisynthetic artemisinin.

For more information on ACTs and other treatment options, see the WHO’s Facts on ACTs.