Affordable Medicines Facility - malaria (AMFm)

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Press Release: $225 million partnership to bring effective Malaria drugs to all who need them

AMFm Frequently Asked Questions
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The Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria is an innovative financing mechanism designed to expand access to the most effective treatment for malaria, artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs).

The Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria is a new line of business hosted and managed by the Global Fund. Financial support for the initiative will come from UNITAID, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and potentially other donors. The Roll Back Malaria Partnership will continue in its important role as a partner to the Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria.

The Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria aims to enable countries to increase the provision of affordable ACTs through the public, private and NGO sectors. This will save lives and reduce the use of less-effective treatments to which malaria parasites are becoming increasingly resistant. It will also reduce the use of artemisinin as a single treatment or monotherapy, thereby delaying the onset of resistance to that drug and preserving its effectiveness.

To achieve this aim, the Global Fund will reduce the manufacturer sales price of ACTs to public, private and not-for-profit sector buyers. The Global Fund will do this by negotiating a lower price for ACTs and then paying a large proportion of this directly to manufacturers on behalf of buyers (a buyer “co-payment”). This means that buyers will only pay approximately US$0.05 for each course of ACTs. For patients who currently pay for treatment, this is expected to result in a significant reduction in the price of ACTs from about US$6-10 per treatment to about US$0.20-0.50.

The first phase of Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria will be launched in a small group of countries, to enable lessons to be learned before expanding the initiative to other malaria-endemic countries. Applications for Phase 1 were invited from the following countries: Benin, Cambodia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania (mainland and Zanzibar) and Uganda. Applications were due on 1 July 2009 and reviewed by the TRP for technical merit in August/September 2009. A board decision on the funding of AMFm proposals will be taken in November 2009, at its 20th Meeting.

If you have any questions about Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria, please consult the Frequently Asked Questions or contact the Global Fund at the following address: