A mixture of subsidy and market forces is being touted as a way to promote the use of combination therapy for treating malaria, which the World Health Organization has recommended since 2001. The long term goal is to reduce and delay the emergence of resistance to the artemisinin family of compounds and extend their lives as effective drugs.

“If we used artemisins in the same way we used chloroquines, which was as a monotherapy, the chance that we would lose it within about 10 years is extremely high,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, a policy analyst with the charity Resources for the Future. He was speaking at a forum in Washington, DC, …