sick 'serif'">Over 40 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have recently revised their national uncomplicated malaria treatment policies replacing either chloroquine (CQ) or sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) with artemisinin-based combi- nation therapy (ACT). These policy changes have been made in response to growing evidence of the adverse consequences of malaria treatment failures and the need to limit the future spread of drug resistance .Following the recognition that morbidity and mortality due to malaria had dramatically increased in the last three decades, pills in 2002 the government of Zambia reviewed its efforts to prevent and treat malaria. Convincing evidence of the failing efficacy of chloroquine resulted in the initiation of a process that eventually led to the development and implementation of a new national drug policy based on artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT). All published and unpublished documented evidence dealing with the antimalarial drug policy change was reviewed. These data were supplemented by the authors' observations of the policy change process. The information has been structured to capture the timing of events, the challenges encountered, and the resolutions reached in order to achieve implementation of the new treatment policy.

 Naawa Sipilanyambe, Jonathon L Simon et al; 2008, 7:25 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-7-25