Report warns against shifting funding, prevention efforts away from countries successful in malaria fight

Sep 21 2011

A new analysis (.pdf) conducted by the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, the Evidence to Policy Initiative at the University of California-San Francisco, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative "warns that if the countries that have produced impressive reductions in malaria cut or stop control activities, malaria will rapidly resurge and a decade of progress will have been in vain," BMJ News reports.

Though "malaria control has improved dramatically in the past five years, helped by increased funding and an emphasis on simple but effective measures," such as insecticide-treated bednets and indoor residual spraying, "donations have fallen in the past two years, causing fears that these long awaited successes could be lost," according to the report, BMJ notes. The analysis aims to show the cost effectiveness of malaria control programs and urges "donors to give equal priority to countries that have been successful and those that have not," the news service reports (Hawkes, 9/19).