IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-03-51.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

ACT Now or Later: The Economics of Malaria Resistance

Author

Listed:
  • Laxminarayan, Ramanan

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

In the past, malaria control efforts in sub-Saharan Africa have relied on a combination of vector control and effective treatment using chloroquine. With increasing resistance to chloroquine, attention has now turned to alternative treatment strategies to replace this failing drug. Although there are strong theoretical arguments in favor of switching to more expensive artemisinin-based combination treatments (ACTs), the validity of these arguments in the face of financial constraints has not been previously analyzed. In this paper, we use a bioeconomic model of malaria transmission and evolution of drug resistance to examine questions of optimal treatment strategy and coverage when drug resistance places an additional constraint on choices available to the policymaker. Our main finding is that introducing ACTs sooner is more economically efficient if the planner had a relatively longer time horizon. However, for shorter planning horizons, delaying the introduction of ACTs is preferable.

Suggested Citation

  • Laxminarayan, Ramanan, 2003. "ACT Now or Later: The Economics of Malaria Resistance," RFF Working Paper Series dp-03-51, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-03-51
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-03-51.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Asenso-Okyere, W. K. & Dzator, Janet A., 1997. "Household cost of seeking malaria care. A retrospective study of two districts in Ghana," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 45(5), pages 659-667, September.
    2. Gomes, Melba, 1993. "Economic and demographic research on malaria: A review of the evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1093-1108, November.
    3. Chima, Reginald Ikechukwu & Goodman, Catherine A. & Mills, Anne, 2003. "The economic impact of malaria in Africa: a critical review of the evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 17-36, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anderson, Soren T. & Laxminarayan, Ramanan & Salant, Stephen W., 2012. "Diversify or focus? Spending to combat infectious diseases when budgets are tight," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 658-675.
    2. Marsh, Sally P. & Llewellyn, Rick S. & Powles, Stephen B., 2006. "Social costs of herbicide resistance: the case of resistance to glyphosate," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 139881, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    3. Laxminarayan, Ramanan & Over, Mead & Smith, David L., 2005. "Will a global subsidy of artemisinin-based combination treatment (ACT) for malaria delay the emergence of resistance and save lives?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3670, The World Bank.
    4. Schneider, Kristan A. & Kim, Yuseob, 2010. "An analytical model for genetic hitchhiking in the evolution of antimalarial drug resistance," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 93-108.
    5. Herrmann, Markus & Gaudet, Gérard, 2009. "The economic dynamics of antibiotic efficacy under open access," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 334-350, May.
    6. Laxminarayan, Ramanan & Parry, Ian W.H. & Smith, David L. & Klein, Eili Y., 2010. "Should new antimalarial drugs be subsidized?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 445-456, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laxminarayan, Ramanan, 2003. "ACT Now or Later: The Economics of Malaria Resistance," Discussion Papers 10699, Resources for the Future.
    2. Josselin Thuilliez, 2007. "Malaria and Primary Education: A Cross-Country Analysis on Primary Repetition and Completion Rates," Post-Print halshs-00144666, HAL.
    3. Dillon, Andrew & Friedman, Jed & Serneels, Pieter, 2014. "Health Information, Treatment, and Worker Productivity: Experimental Evidence from Malaria Testing and Treatment among Nigerian Sugarcane Cutters," IZA Discussion Papers 8074, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Jean-Claude Berthélemy & Josselin Thuilliez, 2014. "The economics of malaria in Africa," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01045213, HAL.
    5. Su, Tin Tin & Sanon, Mamadou & Flessa, Steffen, 2007. "Assessment of indirect cost-of-illness in a subsistence farming society by using different valuation methods," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(2-3), pages 353-362, October.
    6. Jean-Claude Berthelemy & Josselin Thuilliez, 2014. "The economics of malaria in Africa," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01045213, HAL.
    7. Charles C. Ezenduka & Daniel Resende Falleiros & Brian B. Godman, 2017. "Evaluating the Treatment Costs for Uncomplicated Malaria at a Public Healthcare Facility in Nigeria and the Implications," PharmacoEconomics - Open, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 185-194, September.
    8. McIntyre, Diane & Thiede, Michael & Dahlgren, Göran & Whitehead, Margaret, 2006. "What are the economic consequences for households of illness and of paying for health care in low- and middle-income country contexts?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 858-865, February.
    9. Chima, Reginald Ikechukwu & Goodman, Catherine A. & Mills, Anne, 2003. "The economic impact of malaria in Africa: a critical review of the evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 17-36, January.
    10. Ikefuji, M. & Magnus, J.R. & Sakamoto, H., 2010. "Climate Change, Economic Growth, and Health," Discussion Paper 2010-86, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    11. Douglas Gollin & Christian Zimmermann, 2005. "Malaria," 2005 Meeting Papers 561, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Patrick Sakdapolrak & Thomas Seyler & Christina Ergler, 2013. "Burden of direct and indirect costs of illness: Empirical findings from slum settlements in Chennai, South India," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 13(2), pages 135-151, April.
    13. Adesina, Adedoyin & Akogun, Oladele & Dillon, Andrew & Friedman, Jed & Njobdi, Sani & Serneels, Pieter, 2017. "Robustness and External Validity: What do we Learn from Repeated Study Designs over Time?," 2018 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 5-7, 2018, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 266292, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Catherine A. Goodman & Paul G. Coleman & Anne J. Mills, 2001. "Changing the first line drug for malaria treatment—cost‐effectiveness analysis with highly uncertain inter‐temporal trade‐offs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(8), pages 731-749, December.
    15. Larochelle, Catherine & Dalton, Timothy J., 2006. "Transient Health Shocks and Agricultural Labor Demand in Rice-producing Households in Mali," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25314, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Sunde, Uwe & Cervellati, Matteo & Esposito, Elena & Valmori, Simona, 2016. "Malaria Risk and Civil Violence," CEPR Discussion Papers 11496, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Masha F. Somi & James R. G. Butler & Farshid Vahid & Joseph D. Njau & Salim Abdulla, 2009. "Household responses to health risks and shocks: A study from rural Tanzania raises some methodological issues," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 200-211.
    18. David E. Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2022. "Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 85-131, March.
    19. Mangheni, Margaret Najjingo & Ringler, Claudia & Tsegai, Daniel & Wielgosz, Benjamin, 2012. "Malaria and agriculture: A global review of the literature with a focus on the application of integrated pest and vector management in East Africa and Uganda," IFPRI discussion papers 1232, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Malaria; mathematical models; drug resistance; bioeconomics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I19 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Other
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-03-51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.