World Health Organisation Calls for Sustained Global Investment in the Fight Against Malaria

Global efforts to control and eliminate malaria have saved around 3.3 million lives since 2000 and reduced deaths due to malaria by 45% worldwide, according to the World Malaria Report 2013 published by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The report indicates, however, that more could be done and called for sustained political commitment and funding to continue the fight against malaria. "This remarkable progress is no cause for complacency: absolute numbers of malaria cases and deaths are not going down as fast as they could," stated Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO. In 2012, there were an estimated 207 million cases of malaria, which caused approximately 627 000 malaria deaths.

Long way from universal access to prevention and treatment

This year's World Malaria Report points to a slowdown in the expansion of interventions to protect against mosquito bites for the second year running, mainly due to a lack of funds to provide long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

Global funding gap

While international funding for malaria control increased from under US$ 100 million in 2000 to almost US$ 2 billion in 2012, the total figure falls far short of the US$ 5.1 billion needed every year to provide universal access to malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

ISGlobal and the World Malaria Report

The Barcelona Institute for Global Health, ISGlobal, whose research centre is a WHO Collaborating Centre for Malaria Control, Elimination and Eradication of malaria, has participated in the preparation of the World Malaria Report for three years.