Malaria goal 'unlikely to be reached'
Africa was found to receive appropriate funding for malaria
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Tuesday, 22, Jul 2008 12:49
Shortfalls in funding mean that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halt and begin to reverse malaria worldwide is unlikely to be met, experts warned today.
The goal was set in 2000 by the United Nations as part of efforts to reduce the world's major diseases.
Malaria is one of the world's biggest killers, causing over a million deaths every year.
Assessing progress in the past eight years, Professor Bob Snow and colleagues from the University of Oxford identified areas where risk is moderate or high and where the risk is relatively low and compared this to levels of funding to control malaria.
They also analysed where funding was allocated for malaria control from major donors such as the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the World Bank and the US President's Initiative and from national governments.
Writing in the journal PLoS Medicine, they argue that more money needs to be invested and to be distributed more fairly.
The researchers found a wide range of regional disparity between risk levels and amount of money allocated to the area for malaria control.
For example, Burma received US$0.01 for each person at risk, compared to US$147 in Suriname, South America.
Certain areas, such as Africa, the Americas and the Middle East, received appropriate levels of the funding disbursed, but there were large shortfalls in other regions, such as south-east Asia and the Western Pacific regions.
"There is clearly a lot of good will from the international community to tackle malaria, but more money needs to be invested and this needs to be distributed more equitably," said Professor Snow, who is based at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Nairobi, Kenya.
"If not, it is unlikely that the Millennium Development Goal to tackle malaria will be met.
"We need to map where the problems are and where investment is most needed if we are to target the funds more effectively. This has been one of the primary intentions of the Wellcome Trust-funded Malaria Atlas Project. Without a map we could easily be missing the target and wandering around in endless circles."