Acumen Fund

Local Artemisinin Production to Fight Malaria

Artemisinin production is providing treatment for malaria and livelihoods for thousands of farmers.

Malaria causes between 1-2 million deaths a year, and incurs economic loses of up to 5% of GDP in some countries.
In many places, drug-resistant strains of malaria are spreading rapidly. The current generation of low-cost, stand-alone treatments for malaria, such as chloroquine, have lost their effectiveness.
Artemisinin-Based Combination Therapies (ACTs) have been embraced by the WHO and the Global Fund, but current world production of ACTs will need to increase from an estimated 20 to 280 tons per year to meet even current dosage needs.

For eight years, BEEPZ (formerly ABE) has fostered the local, large-scale production of artemisinin in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, achieving unsurpassed expertise in growing and processing the raw material, artemisia annua.
BEEPZ is now scaling up its production to 70 million regimens of ACTs annually.
By purchasing artemisia plants locally from approximately 5,000 medium and small scale farmers, BEEPZ fills a gap in the supply chain of affordable malaria treatments while also creating local revenue and employment opportunities.

BEEPZ’s scale up in production and improvements in equipment for extraction will make millions more of affordable ACT treatments available, resulting in saved lives.
Growing high-quality artemisinin instead of the more traditional maize crop enables farmers to earn up to four times the income gained from other subsistence crops.