Companies look to improve drug formulation and compliance for children

Many of the illnesses that children are facing in Africa have medication to either prevent or help the symptoms of the disease.To companies have recently taken a stand and are helping to develop and distribute these medications for children to help them in their every day lives.

Medicines Patent Pool is a nonprofit that's goal is to deliver quality and affordable drugs to those suffering in Africa from HIV.  There are 3.4 million children who suffer from HIV and of those, 25% have no access to medication.  Formulations for children are very important as well as fixed doses that they can remain compliant to.  However, three critical steps must fall into place and the nonprofit must find a way to acquire the intellectual property, then develop the child friendly medication then deliver it.  Find out more at All Africa.

In Kenya, Novartis has focused their efforts on malaria.  Every 60 seconds, a child dies from the disease in sub-Sarahan Africa.  A typical malaria treatment calls for 24 pills in a drug dose - the new formulation of Coartem 80/480 can be dosed in 8 pills. Kenya, Uganda and Ghana are three of the countries to fully adopt this new treatment form. In 2001, Coartem Dispersible (r) was one of the first drugs to be formulated specifically for children and since then, over 200 million tablets have been distributed across the African continent. Find out more about their efforts to provide children with their milaria medicine at Africa Science News.

How important is it that drug does and formulations are developed for children?