An economist has warned that global efforts to combat
malaria are on the verge of collapse as scarce international donor funds
were being used to fight AIDS instead. Malaria is estimated to kill more
than 1-million people each year, most of whom are children in sub-Saharan
Africa. Mr Sachs, speaking to journalists during an international teleconference
said that international donors were not living up to their promises to
help combat malaria. To make matters worse, he said, AIDS took the lion's
share of donor funding. For example, the UN Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and
Malaria, had committed only 22m for malaria programmes during its first
round of funding (out of a total of 616m committed). Sachs also lashed
out at the World Bank for failing to meet its commitment to raise $500m
to help eradicate malaria. “The situation is paradoxical. Knowing
what to do insecticide coated bed nets alone could save millions of lives
and we even have new organisational funds, but the pieces have not come
together to produce results,” said Sachs. Sachs said that malaria
cost the African economy more than $12bn a year, and that the disease
could be controlled for $2-3bn annually.

Source: Massive Effort