非洲努力与疟疾做斗争

Hello and welcome to this edition of Africa Express here on China Radio International. I'm your host, Wei Tong.

Malaria is a major killer in Africa. On average a child dies of the disease every thirty seconds. Malaria has also been estimated to cause Africa more than twelve billion dollars in lost gross domestic products a year. In 2000, African leaders in Abuja, Nigeria adopted a declaration endorsing a concerted strategy to fight malaria on the continent. The global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria gives grants to countries which apply to fund their programs to combat the disease. The Roll Back Malaria Partnership has committed itself to improve the access rate of applications from African countries for these grants.

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership launched in 1998 by the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank coordinates the global efforts against the disease. Its main goal is to cut by half the number of malaria cases by 2010. Each year the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria provides funds to countries which have met the criteria for getting these moneys. Currently, the fund is providing more than 60 percent of the resources needed to fight malaria worldwide. And the Roll Back Malaria Partnership wants to make sure that a higher percentage of countries applying for these funds get them.

Usually 19 or more African countries apply for these resources. The executive director of the global fund Professor Michel Kazatchkine says one of the reasons that some of these countries don't get the funds is that the programs they submit don't confirm to international standards and best practices for fighting malaria.

"That is the drugs that are used are not appropriate or the nature of the bed nets is not that which is recommended. And with the programs themselves that is for example a budget that is not aligned with the objectives or an over ambitious program of which we would question the feasibility or else a program that we would not have considered ambitious enough given the resources that the people where we questing and given the needs of the grounds."

In addition to that, some of the African countries take a long time to come up with clear policies to effectively combat malaria. Dr. Awa Marie Coll-Seck, the executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership says that as a result of the delaying coming up with proper policies, these countries continue to use drugs which are no longer effective in preventing malaria.

"And this is why also a lot of countries were continuing to use chloroquine or SP and it was not very efficient. Now almost all the countries would need it put the policies on ACTs into practice. And more and more people had access to this product."

ACTs are combination therapies which can prevent malaria that is resistant to chloroquine. Dr. Hiroki Nakatani, assistant director-general of the World Health Organization says the agencies promoting wider use of these therapies instead of using only one therapy.

"And we would like to have global efforts to make ACTs more accessible through an ACT global to cure my activities and which are very much funded by the global fund, second to prevent mosquito bites. We have bed nets so that mosquito cannot bite most variable populations. And now we have long-lasting nets which can work for many years, three to five years."

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership is now confident of its success in the fight against malaria in Africa because now it has more money to give the countries which have the programs that really work. Dr. Awa Marie Coll-Seck points out that in the past, the limited amounts of funds available meant the programs implemented us also limited.

"In 1980s WTO, the World Bank, etc start to hold back malaria. They have only 60 million dollar for the fight and we need 3 billion. And when you are doing the intervention, just in a village or in a district, we will never have impact at national level or at regional level."

So far, the global fund has released over 900 million dollars to treat over 20 million cases of malaria in Africa. In countries such as Mozambique, Rwanda and Zanzibar, malaria death has been cut by 40 to 90 percent in only two years.

That brings us to the end of this edition of Africa Express. If you would like to listen to this or other stories again, please log onto our website at www.crienglish.com. You can also contact us via email through africaexpress@crifm.com. I'm Wei Tong. I hope you can tune into our program next time. Bye for now!