Anne Mugisa
25 September 2008
Kampala — Uganda is to benefit from $3b in a new ambitious plan to reduce malaria deaths to near zero in seven years. The Global Malaria Action Plan was endorsed yesterday by world leaders gathered for the 2008 Millennium Development Goals Malaria Summit.
The global deaths due to malaria stand at over a million a year.
Health state minister Dr. Emmanuel Otaala yesterday said the malaria toll in Uganda stands at 320 people a day translating into 115,840 victims a year.
He said the Global Malaria Action Plan involved a combination of prevention measures which include use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, indoor residual spraying, use of anti-malarial treatments and killing of mosquito larvae.
In Uganda, indoor residual spraying with DDT was suspended after a court injunction secured by protesting environmentalists.
But Otaala said malaria deaths in the few places they sprayed reduced. For example, in Oyam they reduced by over 30%.
He said indoor residual spraying of DDT would reduce malaria deaths further, adding that the high infant mortality rates could drop to less than 10 out of 1,000.
The plan indicates that by achieving UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's call for full coverage of malaria interventions by 2010, about 4.2 million lives could be saved by 2015. This would lay the foundation for a longer term eradication of the disease.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria committed $1.62b for over two years in new grants for malaria submitted to its board for approval in November.
It also plans to distribute 100 million additional mosquito nets, a release from the World Health Organisation said.
The World Bank committed $1.1b to expand the Malaria Booster Programme and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation committed $168.7m for the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative for research on a new generation of malaria vaccines.
The UK Department for International Develop-ment pledged £40m for the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria. It also pledged an additional £5m per year by 2010 andâ-‚to provideâ-‚20 million of the 125 million mosquito nets needed to close the global gap.
The Marathon Oil/Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria/Equatorial Guinea pledged $28m, while the UN High Commission for Refugees / United Nations Foundation pledged $2m.
The Sesame Workshop/ Mattel/ Malaria No More will provide $2m for malaria-education materials and mosquito nets in Tanzania and Zambia.
Fully implementing the plan will require $5.3b in 2009 worldwide ($2.2b for Africa) and $6.2b worldwide in 2010 ($2.86b for Africa) to expand malaria control programmes.
An additional $750-900m per year is needed for research on vaccines, drugs and other new tools.
The African Union has made fighting malaria a top priority, recognising that the disease affects millions of Africans and costs the continent about $12b.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
