US President George W. Bush named eight more countries Thursday to receive US assistance for malaria prevention and treatment in Africa, where the disease kills a million people a year, and asked Europeans to do more to help.
Bush said Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Zambia, Kenya, Liberia, Ethiopia and Benin will be added to the US effort in 2008. Bush met earlier at the White House with Benins visiting President, Thomas Boni Yayi, and praised his willingness to help anti-malaria efforts.
The US initiative already has started in Uganda, Angola and Tanzania. The White House previously said it would be expanded in 2007 to include Senegal, Malawi, Rwanda and Mozambique. Bush cited action by businesses, private foundations, the World Bank and others against malaria, but said more must be done.
The program, known as the Presidents Malaria Initiative, is a five-year, 1,2 billion US dollar effort that challenges the private sector to join the US government in combating malaria in 15 of the hardest-hit African nations.
Top leaders of all the main malaria-fighting organizations — from the World Health Organization to the World Bank, from the US Agency for International Development to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to UNICEF – were at the forum, which the Bush administration titled the White House Summit on Malaria.
“Malaria No More”, a nonprofit group of business and charitable groups that organized in response to a challenge from Bush, talked up its website, www.malarianomore.org, as a place where people can donate 10 dollar (ca 60 DKR) to provide a family with a mosquito net to prevent malaria, and the education to use it properly.
The big money, however, has come from big donors. The Global Fund has so far committed 2,6 billion dollar to malaria. The Gates Foundation has promised to spend 766 million. The World Bank has approved 357 million in loans.
Meanwhile, the World Bank Tuesday approved an interest-free credit totaling 180 million US dollar to boost Nigerias National Malaria Control Program, Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, has said.
Wolfowitz said the credit facility to Nigeria is from the World Bank Malaria Control Booster Program set up 15 months back. He expressed hope that the credit would go a long way in helping Nigeria reduce, by over half, the burden of malaria-related deaths by 2010.
Wolfowitz said part of the loan would be deployed to increase malaria protection for vulnerable groups as well as focusing on effective prevention, diagnosis and case management.
He noted that the project would also mobilize the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and community-based organizations to expand access to sustainable malaria services for local communities. The booster program of the World Bank builds upon efforts and programs of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership which in Nigeria includes the World Bank.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
