Funding for malaria has risen sharply over the past three years but still has to double to meet needs, according to a study published online on Saturday by The Lancet.
Global financing has risen by 166 percent since 2007, from US$730 million to around US$1.94 billion, it said.
However, this is around 40 percent of the US$4.9 billion that is needed for comprehensive control of malaria this year, it said.
The good news is that 21 countries, including 12 in Africa, have now received adequate, or near-adequate assistance.
The study, headed by Bob Snow, a professor at the Centre for Geographic Medicine at Oxford University, comes ahead of a meeting in New York on Tuesday of donors to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Several hundred million cases of malaria occur each year, of which about 850,000 are fatal.
The study highlights the disparities among 93 countries where malaria is endemic.
China and India, as well as two African countries, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, have economies that are strong enough to support malaria programs by themselves, it says.
Whether international donors should support these countries’ needs should be debated, it says.
In contrast, there are 10 African countries and five in Asia that are short of funds and low in domestic income.
“Poor countries with inadequate donor assistance and large sectors of their population at risk of malaria must remain in the focus of attention if global ambitions for malaria control are to be realized,” Snow said.
Under the Millennium Development Goals, reviewed in New York last week, UN members pledged to “have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.”
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the