By Ben Hirschler

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is launching a programme to make subsidised malaria drugs available in Tanzania in a test scheme that could serve as a blueprint for Africa as a whole.

The project, to be announced later on Sunday in Dar es Salaam, will make life-saving ACT drugs available at 90 percent less than the current market price to a national drug wholesaler, which will then distribute them to rural shops.

Malaria, caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes, kills up to 3 million people a year worldwide and makes 300 million seriously ill. Ninety percent of deaths are in Africa south of the Sahara, mostly among young children.

Many of those lives could be saved with modern artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drugs, which are far more effective than older treatments such as chloroquine. But a price of up to $8 to $10 per treatment puts them out of reach for many people.

Although drugmakers including Novartis <NOVN.VX> and Sanofi-Aventis SA <SASY.PA> have reduced the cost of ACT medicines to around $1 when they are used in the public sector, the majority of Africans buy their medicine privately.

In the case of Tanzania, around half of patients with malaria seek treatment through private drug shops instead of public health facilities, and most are unable to afford ACTs. Instead, they usually buy older drugs that are 20 to 30 times cheaper but are often ineffective due to drug resistance.

The pilot programme by the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative is designed to test the practicality of subsidising ACT drugs as a way to increase their use, a foundation spokesman said.

ACT treatments are derived from a medicinal Chinese plant and are costly to manufacture.

International organisations and governments, including those form the Netherlands and Britain, are currently considering a multimillion dollar global subsidy plan for ACT medicines.

Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the U.N.-backed Roll Back Malaria Partnership, told reporters in London earlier this year she hoped a $300 million global scheme could be introduced as early as 2008.

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