Winning the fight against malaria 

SYDNEY, 24 April 2009 - For the first time in history malaria is poised to become a rare cause of death and disability - as the battle escalates against the disease that kills one million people every year.

New research, released on the eve of World Malaria Day, shows that endemic African countries received enough insecticide-treated nets during 2004-2008 to cover more than 40 per cent of their at-risk populations. Since 2004 the number of nets produced worldwide has more than tripled—from 30 million to 100 million in 2008.

Data presented in the ‘Malaria and Children, Progress in Intervention Coverage’ report, a joint effort with UNICEF, the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, show major signs of progress across Africa in the fight against malaria, particularly in the increase in distribution of insecticide-treated nets.
 
“However every year, this disease still kills an estimated one million people, most of them children in Africa,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman.

 “Malaria also affects around 50 million pregnant women annually, contributing to maternal anemia, low birth weight babies and even maternal death.”

The theme of this year’s World Malaria Day, which is marked on April 25, is “Counting malaria out", and there are now just over 600 days remaining until 31 December 2010, the Secretary-General’s deadline for all endemic countries to achieve universal coverage with essential malaria control interventions.

“Scaling-up effective interventions has led to declines in malaria cases and deaths at health facilities in many countries, including Eritrea, Rwanda, Zambia and Madagascar,” said Ms Veneman. “This has the added benefit of reducing the burden on over-stretched hospitals and clinics and having less absentees in the workplace and in school.”

“The report shows financing is now available to purchase enough nets to put Africa well on the way to achieving universal coverage by 2010,” said Ms Veneman.

UNICEF is the world’s largest global procurer and deliverer of insecticide treated nets with 20 million procured in 2008.  The number of nets procured by UNICEF is 20 times greater today than in 2000. More than 90 per cent of these were long lasting insecticide-treated.

For more information, please contact:
Martin Thomas, UNICEF Australia
0401 332 399
mthomas@unicef.org.au

Kate Mayhew, UNICEF Australia
0424 738 474
kmayhew@unicef.org.au