OnWednesday 18th April, a week ahead of World Malaria Day, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (APPMG) will hold an event in the House of Commons focusing on how funding can be sustained for maintaining and increasing programmes to control malaria.
Malaria has a particularlyhigh prevelance rate amongst children. It infects between 300 to 500 million people a year and kills over one million people. Most of the deaths are of children under five years old and over 90% of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria in pregnancy causes low birth weight, which contributes to infant mortality.
According to the most recent World Health Organization, World Malaria Report 2010, effortsfor prevention have been largely successful, producing real changes in malaria transmission; most caseswhere feveris prevalent(even in Africa) are now no longer due to malaria.
Although the 2010 report noted that significant progress has been made, it alsodrew attention to the fact thata resurgence of malaria was observed in three African countries.It suggests thiscould be in part due to a lapse in control measures.Therefore sustaining high coverage rates of Malaria prevention and control shouldremain of particular concern.
World Malaria Day on the 25th April has been themed, "sustain gains, save lives: invest in Malaria", calls on sustainable and sufficient funding of programmesto control malaria -which can be a significantcontributionto reaching the health related aims of the Millennium Development Goals by their 2015 deadline.
The APPMG eventtitled, "how can funding be sustained for maintaining and increasing programmes for controlling malaria" will hear from speakers:
Dr Christoph Benn from The Global Fund, who will give an overview of the progress on the Comprehensive Transformation Plan at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria as well as key elements of the new Global Fund Strategy 2012 – 2016.
Christopher Edgerton-Warburton, Partner, Lion’s Head Global Partners, who will discuss the Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF). This new impact investment which is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and managed by the Lion’s Head has been designed to catalyse low cost debt funding for late stage products for Global Health with a strong focus on malaria.
Alan Court, Senior Advisor to the United Nation’s Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Malaria, who will look at the overall needs and gaps in financing for malaria and the different potential streams of financing being explored.
Stephen O’Brien MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development, who is to attend and offer DfiD’s perspective on the speakers’ contributions.
Stephen O’Brien will also be answering questions on UKaid and malaria during a live Q&A event on Facebook on Tuesday 17 April from 2-2.30pm. Follow this link for more information or to post questions in advance of the session.
For more information about the event and how to register please visit the website of theAPPMG.
For furtherresources,documents, country specificinformation as well asa toolkit on controlling malaria in schools,pleasesee the following links:
