Pradeep Nambiar, an executive at Ipca Laboratories, an Indian company, said that its Chinese suppliers had reneged on contracts and that he believed they could be "holding back stock anticipating a price rise."
The most vivid evidence of the shortage emerged last Monday, when Novartis, a major Swiss drug company, said it could produce only about half of the 4.5 million courses of its Co-Artem drug that it had promised to deliver to the WHO by March. Its lone artemisinin supplier in China had fallen short, it said.
Co-Artem is the only malaria drug prequalified by the WHO, an endorsement of its safety.
It also combines two drugs in one pill, making it harder for a patient to give away or sell part of a dose.
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