Uganda provides free ACTs for malaria

The Daily Monitor reports that the Ugandan government is now providing Novartis' artemisinin-based combination therapy, Coartem, free of charge in both public and private hospitals and clinics, going so far as to pass a law against selling the drug for profit. While I applaud the government's effort to increase access to such essential medicines among the poor, I can't help wondering how this will impact resistance to the drug, particularly in light of the frequent overdiagnosis of the disease. The Ministry of Health is right that far too few Ugandans could bear the full $11 cost of treatment, but should patients be required to make at least a small copayment to guard against moral hazard and overuse? It's not clear to me that free is better - in the end, it is a question of whether increasing access in the short-term saves more lives now than it might cost in terms of resistance further down the line.