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14 December 2006
Eight More African Countries To Receive U.S. Anti-Malaria Help
Countries to be added in 2008 brings to 15 total getting support
Washington -– Working with partners around the world, the United States is helping the people of Africa "turn the tide against malaria," says President Bush.
Bush announced December 14 that eight more countries will receive U.S. support to defeat malaria -- Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Zambia, Kenya, Liberia, Ethiopia and Benin.
That will bring to 15 the number of countries being helped by the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), a $1.2 billion, five-year effort launched in June 2005 to conquer the deadly disease.
PMI support goes to providing families with insecticide-treated bed nets and training on how to use them. The initiative also provides support for bed-net distribution and indoor spraying, effective and fast-acting malaria-treatment medicine and malaria-preventive medicine for pregnant women.
Through partnerships working in the three first-year PMI partner countries -- Uganda, Tanzania and Angola -- U.S. taxpayers already have helped approximately 6 million people, Bush said at a malaria summit in Washington. In 2007, 30 million people in Senegal, Malawi, Rwanda and Mozambique will be helped by the initiative. (See related article and fact sheet.)
The first White House Summit on Malaria also featured first lady Laura Bush and leaders of government, business, and faith-based and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). They came together to discuss ways to raise awareness about malaria and to announce commitments of additional resources to help defeat the disease that threatens more than 40 percent of the world's population.
Malaria, which once affected parts of the southeastern part of the United States, was eliminated from the country nearly 60 years ago, the first lady said. "We have conquered malaria before and we can do it again," said summit master of ceremonies and actor Isaiah Washington, who plays a doctor on the television series Grey's Anatomy.
Calling the meeting "an historic opportunity to end the suffering of millions," the first lady announced the launch of the Malaria Communities Program, a $30 million effort "to help communities in Africa take charge of their own health" by helping to fund independent, sustainable malaria-control projects operated by African NGOs and religious groups.
She also announced the start of a "Nets Are Nice" educational program to "engage the energy, creativity and compassion" of children throughout the United States and teach them how to raise funds in their schools and communities for anti-malaria efforts. The "Nets are Nice" schoolbook teaches children that treated bed nets cost just $10 each and can be delivered to African families at risk for malaria.
Malaria remains "a persistent killer" in Africa, Bush said. In 2005, the preventable and treatable mosquito-borne disease claimed approximately 1 million lives on the continent, the vast majority of them children, he said. The president announced an expansion of the U.S. Volunteers for Prosperity program to recruit such skilled U.S. volunteers as doctors and nurses to travel to at-risk countries to train local health care workers.
Melinda Gates, chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said her organization is expanding the number of projects it funds to research new malaria treatments. Since 1995 the Gates Foundation has provided $642 million to fight malaria, according to the organization.
Gates also noted other significant private sector efforts, such as the new "Nothing But Nets" program of the National Basketball Association and Women's National Basketball Association. That project will use the power of popular television broadcasts of games and players' public speaking opportunities to inform people in the United States about how they can contribute to fight malaria in affected countries.
The United States will join Africa in observing April 25, 2007, as "Malaria Awareness Day," the first lady said.
For additional information on U.S. policy, see Health.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
