Health care policy in an age of austerity.

1075 ducting research on improved detection methods are all necessary activities. Interpol, national authorities, drug companies, academic groups, the United States Pharmacopeia, and the WHO are collaborating on these actions. The threat posed by emerging artemisinin resistance on the Cambodia–Thailand border is widely acknowledged, but an effective response requires that critical operational and basic research questions be answered quickly. Researchers, funders, and policy leaders must recognize the urgency of the problem, take action to address simultaneously several important knowledge gaps, and focus immediately on eliminating the threat of artemisinin resistance. It will be essential to coordinate research and containment efforts globally and to share data, research tools, and experiences. Important existing global forums for action include the WHO, the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network, and the Malaria Research and Reference Reagent Resource Center. The artemisinins have been crucial to recent successes in reducing the malaria burden, and artemisinin-based combination therapies are essential to all plans for malaria elimination. Losing artemisinins to resistance will not only jeopardize the goal of malaria eradication, but will also result in large increases in African childhood mortality like those that occurred during the last century when chloroquine failed against newly evolved drug-resistant parasites.