Can Malaria Bite the Dust? $3 Billion Says Yes

Imagine a world where an infectious disease affects over 515 million people a year, killing 1 to 3 million people and leaving the rest having little to no way of dealing with painful symptoms like kidney failure, an enlarged liver, fever, shivering, vomiting, chills, joint pain, brain damage and even coma. Imagine that the majority of people living with this disease are children in poverty-stricken countries. Now imagine that this disease could be erased, and imagine it possibly happening within your lifetime. You would think it unimaginable, right? The United Nations, Microsoft owner Bill Gates, and U2’s front man Bono want to prove you wrong. A $3 billion  plan took shape in New York at the United Nations conference this week when they unveiled their multiple-donor strategy on its way to eradicating malaria in the next seven years.

Malaria is spread by a parasite in the blood that is carried by female mosquitoes and transferred to a new host human each time the mosquito bites a human and feasts on their blood. Malaria is most common in countries with a large poverty rate because there is more standing water in which the insects can breed and less resources to properly prevent or treat malaria. Bed nets—which are an effective way of preventing bites and cost only around $10 US dollars to manufacture and ship—are commonly treated with insecticide and placed over beds because the nighttime is when mosquitoes feed and the risk of contracting the disease is higher when humans are sleeping.

Together government, private grant institutions, and non-government sponsored companies have all banded to pledge money to this cause. According to the plan, the Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP) partnered with Roll Back Malaria (RBM) is looking to slash the malaria-related deaths by over half by the year 2015, saving over 4 million lives. In the first three years, they hope to limit the cases of malaria by half and then hope to reach a goal nearing zero in seven years, but it won’t be an easy task.

This plan comes on the heels of the pledges reaching a commitment goal of 3 billion dollars from the following contributors: World Bank giving 1.1 billion, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is putting forth 168 million for vaccine research, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuburculosis and Malaria is shelling out 1.6 billion over two years along with a promise to distribute 100 million bed nets, the United Kingdom Department for International Aid with 40 million dollars, and from Marathon Oil/Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria/Equatorial Guinea rounding out the pledges with 28 million.

The world must be brighter because this is the first time that this many countries, areas, and global groups are coming together for a cause. Thirty endemic countries and regions including some in Africa and Southeast Asia—infected areas with a population that is steadily transmitting the disease to new hosts keeping the infection rate at a large plateau—along with 65 international institutions are raising awareness for the progression to make malaria disappear.

Besides Bill Gates, and Bono, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) attended the conference, along with the the Presidents of Rwanda and Tanzania. The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, also in attendance, had this to say about GMAP’s progress, “"This campaign has achieved more in a year than most campaigns have achieved in 100 years….To be able to say with conviction for the first time that all countries will be able to see an end to malaria deaths by 2015 is indeed a historic moment of great significance. . . . What seemed impossible a few years ago is now possible."

Three billion dollars is a good head start, but it’s not even close to the funds needed to see the plan through to the end. Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General says the outpouring of support is “really encouraging”, but adds, “of course, we need more,” emphasizing that more funds are needed in other areas, but concludes that the pledge is a “good will demonstration,” and applauded the effort put forth by saying, “We are getting closer to containing this scourge”. I guess we will find out how close we are in seven years, lucky us.