Global Health and Business Leaders Announce 36-Month Effort to Expand Malaria Control in Africa; 3.5 Million Lives Could be Saved in Five Years, S...(y one million dollars spent. We have...),Health

"We have the tools to tackle this deadly disease. We know what works because we've defeated malaria in other countries," said Rajat Gupta, chair of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the world's largest funder of malaria control programs. "This report shows that we can save millions of lives and make extraordinary progress in defeating malaria worldwide over the next five years."

In light of these findings, leaders in the fight against malaria, including Mr. Gupta, World Bank Group president Robert B. Zoellick, UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman, and Professor Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the RBM Partnership, convened in Davos today to announce an expanded 36-month effort to achieve scale-up of malaria control across sub- Saharan Africa.

This accelerated effort will be coordinated through the RBM Implementation Support Team (or MIST), which will combine the best practices of public health with the best ideas from the private sector. Working through the MIST, partners will help malaria-endemic countries produce business plans for scale- up, coordinate technical assistance, promote economies of scale, link flexible private-sector investments to strategic planning and implementation, and utilize innovative financing options such as lines of credit and pooled purchasing.

"I am pleased to see the private sector playing such an active role in making the investment case to bring malaria under control today," said Professor Awa Coll-Seck, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. "With the launch of this effort, the RBM partnership reaffirms its commitment to halting malaria deaths in the short-term, paving the way for eradicating malaria from this planet altogether in the long-term."

Malaria imposes a crushing human and economic burden, especially in Africa. Despite being eliminated in the United States and other developed nations decades ago, the disease
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