The scale-up of malaria interventions for control or elimination requires careful management and sufficient procurement of commodities, including drugs and diagnostic tests. Understanding global demand for these products is necessary to ensure a stable, robust market. CHAI’s Center for Strategic HIV Operations Research (CSHOR) has developed the Global Malaria Commodities Forecast (MALCOM) tool to forecast global demand for malaria commodities, including artemisinin-based drugs and rapid diagnostic tests.

The MALCOM tool uses a funding-based approach to add up funds available for procurement of drugs or diagnostic tests while accounting for inevitable delays and obstacles. Procurement is estimated on a country-by-country basis and then summed globally. Grants from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the single largest stream of funding for malaria commodities are projected through their life-spans based on an analysis of historical grant performance, and procurement of drugs and tests is estimated as a function of predicted funding disbursements. Additional procurement funded by the United States President’s Malaria Initiative, the World Bank, and UNITAID is also included, with volumes based on procurement plans and adjusted according to historical performance.

MALCOM forecasts for ACTs can be obtained here. The algorithms underlying the Global Fund prediction component of the MALCOM tool are available. For questions regarding algorithms or forecasts, please contact Dr. Justin Cohen. By providing estimates of future global drug and rapid diagnostic test requirements, this tool can help ensure a healthy marketplace for these commodities and their components.