Scientists Assail WHO on Malaria Drugs

LONDON (AP) –
The World Health Organization and other aid agencies are undermining the battle against malaria by funding cheaper and less-effective drugs, contributing to tens of thousands of deaths of children in Africa, researchers asserted.

The scientists, writing in The Lancet medical journal, accused WHO and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria of promoting programs that use the wrong drugs because they are a tenth the cost of better medicines.

Both agencies defended their positions, saying they cannot dictate countries’ drug policies and that many are changing to the new drugs.

At least 1 million people, most of them children, die every year from malaria. One reason propelling the deadly mosquito-borne epidemic is that the bug has become immune to the conventional drugs, chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine.

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