Cosmas Butunyi
26 September 2008
Nairobi — The war against malaria in Africa is set to receive a Sh74 billion boost from the World Bank over the next three years.
This was announced on Thursday in New York by the bank's president, Mr Robert Zoellick at the United Nations Special Session on the Millennium Development Goals.
Mr Zoellick said that the funds would help African countries expand their malaria prevention, care and treatment programmes.
"Malaria is a crushing burden for poor people and developing countries which the World Bank is committed to fighting for as long as it takes to get it under control," he said.
"Malaria preys on the poor and keeps them poor. Poverty prevents people from buying bed-nets to prevent malaria and medicine to cure it. When the disease strikes, parents miss work, children miss school and families plunge into debt from which they can't recover," he said.
The World Bank president said that progress was being seen in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Zambia as they expanded their anti-malaria programmes.
He said that his organisation had prioritised the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, two of the hardest-hit countries. These countries account for 30 to 40 per cent of all malaria deaths worldwide.
"As long as malaria remains a problem in these two countries, their neighbours' efforts to control the disease will be limited and their hopes of eliminating it thwarted," he said.
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