Washington, D.C. - Families USA joins health leaders around the country and the world in recognizing the need for increased spending to combat malaria, an infectious disease that kills more than 1 million people annually.
This year’s first-ever U.S. Malaria Awareness Day (announced at last December’s White House Summit on Malaria), in conjunction with Africa Malaria Day, should be lauded for attempting to reduce the burden of malaria and shining a much-needed spotlight on this massive global problem.
“Much more needs to be done,” said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA. “Specifically, more funding is needed for research and development of new drugs and vaccines to fight what is the single leading cause of death for children under five in Africa.”
Malaria threatens half of the world’s population, and, according to U.S. Department of Defense researchers, it is the most significant infectious disease threat to U.S. troops worldwide. Yet in 2006, America’s leading research institute, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent only $98 million on malaria research—less than one-third of 1 percent of its budget.
The child death rate from malaria doubled from 1990 to 2002, and it could double again in a few decades. This is partially because the drugs used to treat malaria are becoming resistant to the disease. The need for new malaria treatments and a vaccine are more pronounced than ever. Yet from 2005 to 2006, NIH’s inflation-adjusted spending on malaria research decreased by 10 percent.
“This is a paltry investment, particularly considering not only malaria’s massive human costs, but also its economic costs” said Pollack.
In Africa alone, malaria is estimated to reduce the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by $12 billion a year. In fact, estimates suggest that, without malaria, the GDP of some African countries would be almost 30 percent greater than it is today. Reducing the burden of malaria in Brazil, China and Malaysia, for example, would not only benefit these countries, but it would yield economic benefits for the U.S. since, together, these three countries account for 15 percent of U.S. international commodities trade.
Families USA’s work on malaria is part of its Global Health Initiative. The Global Health Initiative was launched in 2006 to advocate for increased U.S. investment in global health research and development of medical interventions targeting diseases that disproportionately affect populations in low-income countries.
