Nations unite for World Malaria Day 2008 - UNICEF

NEW YORK, USA, 24 April 2008 – Ten years after UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and their partners launched the Roll Back Malaria initiative, malaria is still the single largest child killer in Africa. The disease takes the lives of some 3,000 children per day. Of the more than 350 million people who are infected with malaria every year, 90 per cent live in sub-Saharan Africa. Work done by the Roll Back Malaria partners has brought millions of children and their families increased access to health and prevention tools, but the threat remains. These partners, along with governments and public and private-sector organizations, will come together on 25 April, World Malaria Day 2008, in an effort ramp up global action to combat the disease. ‘Curable and preventable’. In malaria-endemic nations, governments spend as much as 40 per cent of their public health expenditures on malaria. This spending, which can be crippling to economic development, is still not enough to cover both treatment and prevention measures – including improved water and sanitation facilities, increased insecticide spraying and the mass distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs). “It is unacceptable that malaria still kills more than 1 million people, mostly children, every year,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. “Malaria is a curable and preventable disease that can be controlled by increasing the use of mosquito nets and other proven interventions as part of integrated, community-based programmes.”

View full text ››    Print     Email     Comment     Add content

Contributor: Anuradha Bhattacharjee
Published Date: April 28, 2008