allAfrica.com: Africa: An Admiral Wages War on Malaria (Page 1 of 3)

Every day, 3,000 African mothers bury children killed by malaria. It is the leading cause of death for children under five in the continent and last year an estimated 1.2 million lost their lives to it.

Yet in many ways a disease that arguably wreaks more havoc than any other seems almost forgotten. Two years ago, in June 2005, President George W. Bush launched a "Malaria Initiative"—a five-year US $1.2 billion effort to fight malaria in Africa. Its goal is to reach 85 percent of the most vulnerable groups – children under five and pregnant women – with proven and effective prevention and treatment measures.

The head of this effort — Admiral R. Timothy Ziemer — the first-ever U.S. Malaria Coordinator – says the goal has been achieved in 15 targeted African nations. AllAfrica's Charles Cobb Jr. spoke with him.

Was there some specific trigger for the malaria initiative? Malaria could almost be called an ancient disease, so why now?

In 2005, just before the G8 (Group of Eight) conference, the President was contemplating health on the G-8 agenda and wanted to keep it there. He has consistently brought international health to the agenda… I think it's really important strategically… HIV and Aids has been one of his key priorities and he has funded that from the very beginning. In 2005, I can't attribute it to any person, but the malaria problem hit his radar screen and when he understood the impact that it was having economically, socially [and] healthwise, it became clear to him that he wanted to elevate that on his priorities.

So he basically set, above and beyond his current agenda, 1.2 billion dollars [for malaria] from 2005 to 2010. There was little money coming in in 2005, but If you look at the funding projection we have accelerated in 2008, 2009, 2010, with 300, 300 and 500 million dollars, so it's a ramp-up through 2010 with specific targets and goals – very much like Pepfar (the President's Aids initiative).

We learned from the Pepfar experience and took away a lot of the best practices. We focused in on 15 of the most endemic countries: on countries that had demonstrated leadership on the national level, that understood and wanted to take care of their people, had strong national malaria control plans, could manage finances with other financial instruments like the Global Fund and the World Bank – so the U.S wouldn't be the only partner but could be a major partner and leverage funding with these other funding sources – and lastly be willing to work with the United States.

The goal of the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) is to reduce mortality in those 15 countries by 50 percent over the five years. Now those weren't U.S targets, those targets are consistent with the Abuja targets, the Millennium Development Goals and the World Bank malaria goals. Basically the funding was to target the most vulnerable population groups: kids under five years – they are very, very vulnerable to malaria because they haven't built up immunity – and of course pregnant women – as they go through their pregnancy cycle they also are vulnerable, not just getting sick and getting anemic but also it affects development and healthy birth. And so we target the money to cover the entire population group in a country and our coverage is 85 percent of those two population groups.

Your coverage goal is 85 percent, Are you achieving that sort of coverage?

We have met it to date. We're going to be able to [continue meeting] that easily. One other thing from the big picture: the President realized that 1.2 billion is just a drop in the bucket. When you look at the international World Health Organization and the Roll Bank Malaria costs and requirements per year, we're at about four billion a year to try to get a handle on malaria.

So with U.S. Government money and Global Fund money – of which 30 percent is U.S money anyway – it still isn't sufficient to bring enough resources to the table. So President Bush challenged the private sector to step up to the plate… to see if they would match the 1.2 billion. This is an operating principle that he's injected throughout…

I am the new kid on the block here but I have seen that the private and the business sector is stepping up to the plate. Certainly the Gates Foundation is there and has been significantly but also other organizations like the UN Foundation and Nothing But Nets [campaign of providing mosquito nets to save children from malaria], Malaria No More and Exxon Mobil. Some of these other corporate partners are stepping up not only with cash but also contributions in kind that are helping to round out, focusing in on the national malaria control plan. So it's really kind of neat to see all the partners coming in together to take on our host countries' malaria requirements and do what we can to fill those gaps.

What about other governments, their primary contribution is via the Global Fund? Is that basically correct?

As a generalization, I would say yes.

What about additional funding from other governments, particularly governments in the G8? Is that part of your effort?

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