Beijing Holley Cotec, a Chinese pharmaceutical company, on Friday launched a new brand of drugs to fight malaria in Malawi, offering a three-day, one-dose-a-day therapy for patients.
Duo-cotecxin, the company’s anti-malaria drug introduced at Sunbird Capital in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, was launched by Pharmacy, Medicine & Poisons Board (PMPB) chairperson Henry Chipeta during a function also attended by Tanzania High Commissioner Patrick Tsere.
The drug is being distributed by Euro Pharmaceuticals in the country.
“I would like to thank the Holley-Cotec pharmaceutical company for introducing duo-cotecxin to Malawi for the treatment of malaria,” said Chipeta.
He advised the company to stick to professionalism to avoid an influx of counterfeit supplies.
The new drug, as one of the Artemisinin Combination Therapies (ACTs) advised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), has come to Malawi following successful launch in Tanzania and 30 other countries, according to the company’s managing director Jacky Zhou.
Holley-Cotec marketing manager Majebele Kissandu claimed the drug has 98 percent efficacy and has minimum side effects unlike other anti-malaria drugs.
In Malawi, malaria is a big problem and a leading cause of illness and death among under-five children and pregnant women, according to a Unicef brochure which adds that six million illnesses are reported every year, 85 percent of them caused by plasmodium falcparum.
