Last month President Barack Obama announced during his final “State of the Union” address to Congress a new “big picture” goal to eliminate malaria worldwide.
Now the President’s National Security Advisor is announcing new details, including the provision of 14 million bed nets – and the locations of the first wave of eradication efforts.
“Zambia has suffered from very high rates of malaria, so if we can eliminate it there we can eliminate it anywhere. 122749 And because Cambodia is the geographic epicenter of emerging drug resistance, ridding it of malaria would minimize the threat of drug resistance malaria elsewhere.” Susan Rice, US National Security Advisor
Susan Rice is urging the US Congress to provide $200 million a year in additional funding for the President’s Malaria Initiative. With a total budget of $874 million this money they will also introduce new eradication programs in Sierra Leone, Cote D’Ivoire, and Cameroon and expand efforts in Burkina Faso.
“Finally, working with public and private sector researchers we’re going to accelerate the research and development and evaluation of new tools to combat malaria. Greater control over malaria-ridden mosquitoes , life-saving vaccines and medicines, all of this will enable us to spark the next big discovery.”Susan Rice, US National Security Advisor
Some medical experts have criticized the President’s ambition to eliminate malaria, perceiving it as unrealistic because of the challenges posed by drug resistance.
The organizers of this conference says increased funding will help enable scientists to stay ahead of the curve.
“The malaria parasite evolves extremely quickly and so do mosquitoes. So the science has to keep ahead of both of those developments as they occur. So it is a bit of a race to make sure that we have the kinds of commodities that are needed to fight both the mosquito and the parasite, both insecticides and drugs.” Elizabeth Ivanovich, Senior Officer of Global Health, UN Foundation.
About 90% of the 438,000 people who died from malaria last year were from Africa and most were children under five years old.
But the intention to target Cambodia is important to Africa as well because this area of South East Asia has been at the epicenter for spreading malaria drug resistance worldwide.
