In a renewed onslaught against malaria, a global commitment of nearly $3 billion (N336 billion) has been approved toward reducing the number of malaria deaths to near zero by 2015, even as the Nigerian government continues to spend less than US$1 (N112) per person per year, irrespective of fact that more than 100 million Nigerians are at risk of malaria infection.

This was the highpoint at the 2008 Millennium Development Goals Malaria Summit which opened on September 25, 2008 in New York. The event took place when world leaders gathered to endorse what has been described as an ambitious new Global Malaria Action Plan and commitment.

Most leaders at the event hailed recent progress against malaria and said that far greater gains can be achieved in the coming years.

The funding commitments are aimed at supporting rapid implementation of the Global Malaria Action Plan, launched by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership with the broad support of a united malaria community. These include the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria commitment of $1.62 billion over two years in new grants for including plans for distribution of 100 million additional bed nets while the World Bank is committing $1.1 billion to expand the Malaria Booster Program, which supports the rapid scale-up of malaria programmes in Africa.

Also is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's $168.7 million to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative for research on a new generation of malaria vaccines and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development £40 million pledge to support the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria. Additionally, commitment to an increase in malaria R&D funding to at least £5 million per year by 2010 and to provide 20 million of the 125 million bed nets that are needed to close the global bed net gap.

On World Malaria Day in April 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for universal coverage with proven malaria tools by the end of 2010, and appointed Ray Chambers, UN Special Envoy for Malaria, to mobilize global support for action on the disease.

"To halt and reverse the incidence of malaria is not only a specific Millennium Development Goal, it is also essential to improving maternal and child health, improving education and significantly reducing poverty," Chambers said.

The Global Malaria Action Plan lays out a detailed course of action to dramatically reduce malaria by achieving three goals. These are on the short term which involves reduction of deaths and illness from malaria by half from 2000 levels, by scaling up access to bed nets, indoor spraying, diagnosis and treatment, including preventive treatment for pregnant women, for all in need by 2010. On the medum term, there is to be reduction of the number of malaria deaths to near zero by 2015, through sustained universal coverage with proven anti-malaria tools.

Long term measures include maintenance of near-zero deaths worldwide while eliminating malaria transmission in key countries, with the ultimate goal of eradicating malaria completely with new tools and strategies. Currently international funding for malaria control is about $1 billion, but to fully implementing the GMAP, about $5.3 billion is required in 2009 worldwide ($2.2 billion for Africa) and $6.2 billion worldwide in 2010 ($2.86 billion for Africa) to expand malaria control programmes, and an additional $750-900 million per year is needed for research on vaccines, drugs and other new tools.