Novartis Launched Flavored Malarial Drug
Tags: anti-malarial drug, cheery, child-friendly drug, curable disease, malarial pill, novartis
Novartis, a Switzerland based pharmaceutical company, is going to launch a new anti-malarial drug that has a pleasant taste of Cheery. Company claims that infants are less likely to spit out that particular flavor.
This child-friendly drug is easily soluble in water and milk and taste more like a fruit juice.
“If the children, easily accept this pleasant change in the anti malarial drug then we will step forward,” Health Minister of Senegalese, Safiatou Thiam Sy said.
Although, malaria is a preventable and curable disease but still it is one of the biggest killers of the world, it takes lives of almost one million people worldwide, each year. In sub-Saharan Africa nine out of ten deaths occur due to malaria. According to the estimation of WHO, a child dies of malaria in Africa after every thirty seconds.
So far, mothers of the children used to crush the malarial pill and then mix it with the sugar to make drug edible for the children, many children have swallowing problem with the drug taste.
Even this sugar coated taste so bitter that children, especially infants spit the drug out.
Now with the little help of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the new version of Coartem (Anti-malarial drug for children) is being launched in the many regions of Africa, including Senegal.
Company is also providing subsidy on this drug to government and making it more cost effective for the majority of the people of Africa.
Leave a Reply