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Experts Say Malaria Can Be Eradicated, but More Money Needed in Fight
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Head of Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria says
disease continues to spread in Africa needlessly





Experts on malaria say the obstacle to reducing the disease in Africa
is no longer technical, but financial. They point to recent scientific
advances against the virus, which they say can dramatically cut its
incidence if more money is forthcoming.

Leaders of groups fighting malaria briefed congressional staff members
on the progress being made in medicines, a vaccine, and other
anti-malaria technology. Combined with their message was an appeal to
boost the U.S. commitment to the global campaign against the virus.

The head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria,
Richard Feachem, told the legislative aides the disease continues to
spread in Africa needlessly. He says the vast majority of the three
million people who die from it each year are African children.

"This is a completely unnecessary child holocaust," he said. "Malaria
is the greatest killer of African children today, and all this is
preventable, all this is need not happen."

Mr. Feachem says new and well established technologies are having an
impact against malaria wherever they have been combined. They include
a recently developed mosquito net from Japan impregnated with long
lasting insecticide, indoor insecticide spraying, novel rapid
diagnostic techniques, a new combination therapy using the Chinese
herb Artemisinin that is more expensive than older treatments but more
effective, and automatic treatment of pregnant women.

"We know that where those interventions are applied at a serious
scale, malaria collapses," he said.

A good example is a 100,000-square-kilometer area of South Africa,
Mozambique, and Swaziland where a three-nation initiative has slashed
the prevalence of children's malaria from 64 percent to less than
eight percent since 1999.

Another promising new technology is an experimental vaccine developed
by the pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline. Tests last year showed it
prevented malaria in 30 percent of the Mozambican children inoculated
and kept it from becoming life-threatening in nearly 60 percent. The
percentages are lower than with vaccines for other diseases, but
higher than using bed nets and insecticides

Glaxo is planning more extensive trials in cooperation with the
Malaria Vaccine Initiative, a private group lead by Melinda Moore. She
says science is no longer the chief impediment to progress against the
disease, and appealed for more American financial assistance.

"Today it's truly money much more than science that limits our
possibility of progressing in these areas," she said. "We need to
seize this opportunity and turn the very important scientific
breakthroughs into real products that can make a difference in the
lives of children. The United States must help accomplish what our own
public health officials have been able to do in this country in wiping
out malaria that we had for many, many decades."

But Ms. Moore says malaria has much less priority in the United States
than AIDS and bioterrorism. She notes that President Bush's proposed
2006 national budget seeks the lowest amount for bilateral spending
for malaria in four years.

However, her program's documents show that the United States has
provided the bulk of the global money for malaria vaccine research for
years. In addition, the head of a private group called Friends of the
Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Anil Soni, says
the United States foots one-third of the Global Fund budget, which
allocated one billion dollars for malaria over the last two years.

"The original idea for the Global Fund was for a Global AIDS Fund,"
she said. "The fact that it became a global fund to fight AIDS, TB,
and malaria and that 44 percent of the Fund's grants are not for AIDS
has helped put much more money on the table for TB and malaria than
would have otherwise occurred. So I think there's a bit of good news,
but a long way to go."

Global Fund Executive Director Richard Feachem points out that malaria
is getting more world attention than ever before and was even
discussed at the recent global economic forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He says he expects his agency's spending on malaria to increase after
the latest round of donor funding is completed later this year.

"It's all very achievable," he said. "If it can be done in southern
Mozambique or Swaziland, it can be done in all African countries. We
need to do it and we need to do it quickly."