Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said on Friday a malaria drug shortage would cost lives and jeopardise a global plan to halve Malaria deaths by 2010.

The aid agency demanded the World Health Organisation (WHO), which relied on Swiss drug maker Novartis to provide its drug Coartem at cost for use in developing countries, turn to other suppliers to save lives.

But WHO officials rejected MSF’s claim that equivalent drugs exist to combat the mosquito-borne disease, especially in parts of Africa where resistance to standard drugs is a problem.

Novartis announced in November its traditional Chinese suppliers of artemisinin, the drug’s main ingredient, were unable to deliver enough this year. It would only be able to make 30 million doses in 2005 - half of the expected demand.

“Some 30 million people will not get treatment and this will certainly lead to thousands of deaths,” Elisabeth Le Saout, medical director of MSF Switzerland, told a news briefing.

A Novartis spokesman said the 30 million treatments it intended to supply in 2005 was six times more than in 2004.

The firm was working hard to meet the WHO’s projected demand for 120 million Coartem treatments to be supplied in 2006.

“This remains highly dependent on secure sources of funding and raw materials,” he told Reuters. “We have made significant investments in improving agricultural production in China and East Africa.”

On Monday, Africa Malaria Day will highlight suffering on the continent where a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

CRISIS SITUATION

“We are in a crisis situation with shortages, confused governments and dying patients,” MSF’s Guillaume Schmidt said.

MSF said the shortage might compromise the goal of the Roll Back Malaria partnership of more than 90 organisations and countries - including the WHO and World Bank - to halve Malaria deaths by 2010.

“If WHO and the Roll Back Malaria partnership want to halve deaths by 2010, they have to expand their agreements and help governments find other sources (of drugs),” Schmidt said.

The Lancet medical journal said on Friday the global partnership was ineffective and deaths from the disease had risen since it pledged to cut them in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2000.

MSF said about 2 million people died a year from Malaria, while the WHO puts the global toll at a million deaths.

Andrea Bosman, of WHO’s Malaria strategy and policy team, said Coartem was the only drug that worked in countries in eastern and southern Africa with high drug resistance, such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

“This is a single-source product at the moment,” he told Reuters. No other drugs had met the same strict standards.

Sanofi-Aventis SA said this month it was preparing to launch a cheap and easy-to-use combination pill for Malaria next year, which it has also committed to supply at no profit.