Addressed to Members of the Transitional Working Group and Technical Support Secretariat
It is vital to improve treatment interventions, not expand use of ineffective treatments
It is of vital importance that the Global Fund be used to support improvement of treatment interventions, and that it does not inadvertently facilitate the expanded use of ineffective treatments. For instance, in the case of malaria treatment, it would be wrong to support programmes which continue to use inexpensive treatments in areas where they have lost their effectiveness due to resistance. Where resistance to traditional first-line treatments – especially chloroquine – is high, malaria treatment must include not only traditional antimalarials, but also regimens containing an artemisinin derivative. Research and development is of course desperately needed to produce more effective and easy to use medicines, vaccines and diagnostic tools for the three diseases – the enclosed report “Fatal Imbalance” contains further details on this issue. Operational research needs to be accelerated to increase knowledge on best practices for implementing new combination treatments and diagnostic strategies in resource-poor settings. Newer, more effective, field-relevant medicines and medical technologies must be made available to poor countries at affordable prices as soon as they are developed.