A new battle against malaria, that infectious disease caused by parasites of the Plasmodium genus inoculated into human beings through the bite of an infected female mosquito of the Anopheles genus, has begun in the country. Colombia’s University of Antioquia (UDEA) announced it started the manufacture of nearly 1.7 million chloroquine tablets to meet national demand.
It is the result of three years of research and coordinated work between the UDEA, the Ministries of Health and Science, and the UDEA Essential Medicines Production Plant, attached to the Faculty of Pharmaceutical and Food Sciences (CIFAL).
The demand for the medication will be met
What is significant about this step is that it is an essential medicine for the treatment of malaria that historically has had to be imported into the country. For that reason, the dean of the UDEA Faculty of Pharmaceutical and Food Sciences, Wber Rios Ortiz, did not hesitate to describe the event as “a very important milestone.”
“We are talking about an advance that will allow the country to meet the demand for this strategic product of public health interest, which is also part of the list of essential medicines for neglected diseases,” Rios Ortiz added, quoted in a UDEA statement.
Although the manufacture of 1.2 million chloroquine tablets had initially been projected, and the drug already has registration from the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (Invima), the figure was adjusted after evaluating together with the Strategic Fund of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), responsible for distributing the drug, that the need for the medication in Colombia and other countries in the region was greater than expected.
For that reason, production increased to nearly 1.7 million tablets. According to the Ministry of Health, between 50,000 and 100,000 cases are registered annually in Colombia. The most affected regions are the Pacific coast, the valleys of the Cauca and Sinu rivers, the Amazon, and the Orinoquia, especially among Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities living in dispersed rural areas.
The beginning of chloroquine production was applauded by the country’s scientific community and received greetings from President Gustavo Petro, who wrote on X: “This industrial and knowledge-based pride in Antioquia is the result of the University of Antioquia and the support that the national government, with 400 billion pesos, has given the university, abandoned by other authorities. Real pharmaceutical production begins in Colombia.”
Production amid a context of difficulties
However, the event also comes amid strong criticism over the state of the Colombian health system and the reforms promoted by the Petro government. One day before the announcement, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic questioned the interventions in eight health provider entities (EPS) responsible for protecting nearly 23 million Colombians.
That fiscal oversight body warned that, despite the intervention, neither financial conditions nor patient care have improved, while complaints over delays in medications and medical appointments continue to increase.
Millions of Colombians are not receiving their medicines because of multiple factors, such as shortages, delays in delivery by dispensing centers, expired prescriptions, and even the accumulation of sanitary registrations at Invima.
At the beginning of this year, several organizations from the pharmaceutical and business sectors, among them the Association of Pharmaceutical Research and Development Laboratories (Afidro) and the Latin American Pharmaceutical Industry Federation (Fifarma), as well as the Colombian American Chamber of Commerce (Am-Cham Colombia), presented a proposal aimed at modernizing Invima and strengthening its capacity to respond to the needs of the health system.
Finally, the agreement signed between the UDEA and the Ministry of Health also includes the production of the drugs niclosamide, benznidazole, and praziquantel, in addition to triconjugated dolutegravir for HIV treatment, developed under another agreement signed with the Ministries of Health and of Science, Technology, and Innovation.
Although chloroquine was the first to complete all stages of the process through to production, the development of the other medications is progressing satisfactorily.