Inter Press Service - November 17, 2004
Sanjay Suri

The initiative comes at the high-level session of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria which began in Arusha in Tanzania Wednesday.

The meeting is being attended by President Benjamin W. Mkapa of Tanzania, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, President Paul Kagami of Rwanda, President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. The meeting at the Arusha International Conference Centre is also being attended by Global Fund board chair Tommy Thompson.

This is the ninth board meeting of the Fund, but particularly significant for fighting malaria which is now top priority within the fund. "At our meeting in Geneva in May, 47 percent of the funds were allocated for malaria," Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive secretary of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership told IPS.

"For the first time more funds were allocated for fighting malaria than for AIDS," she said.

The Global Fund is an independent public-private partnership set up to raise and disburse substantial new funds to fight the three diseases. The Roll Back Malaria Global Partnership was launched in 1998 by the World Health organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

The fund currently raises about a billion dollars a year. But top priority for malaria within the fund will still fall far short of needs.

"The global fight against malaria needs additional funding of about 3.5 billion dollars a year," Coll-Seck said. "We currently have only about 500 million dollars."

The malaria partnership is looking for new donors, she said. "But we think that all those who are giving today can give more. We are talking to Japan and to the Nordic countries to involve them more. We believe that when they have full information on the impact of malaria and its impact on development, they will be sensitive to the needs."

The malaria partnership points to some alarming malaria facts.

A child dies from malaria every 30 seconds. Malaria causes more than a million deaths and contributes to an additional 1.7 million deaths annually. In Africa malaria is the leading cause of death for children under the age of five.

Malaria costs Africa 12 billion dollars every year in lost gross national income (GNI), holding back economic and social development. Malaria can account for 40 percent of total government spending on health. In some countries malaria accounts for up to half of all hospital admissions and outpatient visits.

Poor families spend up to 25 percent of their annual income on direct malaria prevention and treatment costs. Additional, indirect costs include lost income and lost productivity due to absences from work because of illness or caring for those who are ill with malaria.

"We know how to tackle malaria, we have the strategies but the problem is the means by way of human and financial resources," Coll-Seck said.

The means can be as simple as spreading a mosquito net. And mosquito nets are high on the agenda of the five presidents this week.

Before the meeting President Mkapa was due to inaugurate the first African textile mills to manufacture newly designed and long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets against malaria.

At their meeting Thursday and Friday the presidents are expected to take key decisions on the spread of new mosquito nets among larger sections of vulnerable groups, children particularly.

The use of these nets, combined with the roll-out of highly effective new generation malaria drugs in many African countries is expected to precipitate a decline in malaria deaths. That will depend substantially, however, on how much new funding becomes available for fighting malaria.

The malaria partnership has set a goal of halving the incidence of malaria by 2010. The campaign is being tied in closely with the Millennium Development Goals.

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