Chinese malaria regimen opposed by WHO

KUNMING, China, March 6 (UPI) -- A major Chinese drugmaker is engaged in an ongoing dispute with the World Health Organization over the best way to fight malaria.

Kunming Pharmaceutical Corp., which developed the drug artemisinin, says it's helping stem the tide of malaria, which claims more than 1 million lives yearly.

But WHO has urged companies and governments to promote combination drugs, such as one made by Novartis AG of Switzerland, in hopes it will slow any growing resistance of the malaria parasite to the single drug, The Wall Street Journal said Tuesday.

Arata Kochi, a WHO official, said he fears short-term gains in saving lives now will pale next to long-term losses should resistance gain ground. "If we lose artemisinin, we are dead, basically," Kochi told the Journal.

Kunming, which contends the risk is overblown, sells millions of doses of artemisinin in more than 30 countries. It doesn't deny the value of combination therapy but says it should be permitted to phase in its own combination version on its own schedule.

"This medicine is in huge demand, especially from African countries," Kunming executive Yu Zelin said to the Journal. "This is not fair to China. We have developed the drugs ourselves. We will sell the monotherapies."