The quest for universal access to effective malaria treatment: how can the AMFm contribute?

Access to quality assured artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) has remained very low in most malaria endemic countries. A number of reasons, including unaffordable prices, have contributed to the low accessibility to these life-saving medicines. The Affordable Medicines Facility-Malaria (AMFm) is a mechanism to increase access to quality assured ACT. The AMFm will use price signals and a combination of public and private sector channels to achieve multiple public health objectives: replacing older and increasingly ineffective anti-malarial medicines, such as chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine with ACT, displacing oral artemisinin monotherapies from the market, and prolonging the lifespan of ACT by reducing the likelihood of resistance to artemisinin.