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AU leaders adopt new way to fight malaria
As part of the deliberations at the 27th African Union (AU) Summit in Kigali, 49 heads of state adopted a comprehensive new approach to eliminate malaria by 2030.
Dubbed the 'Catalytic Framework to End AIDS, TB and Eliminate Malaria in Africa by 2030', the new tool outlines a pathway to eliminate malaria incidence and mortality, and prevent its transmission and re-establishment in all countries by the set timeline. The Catalytic Framework builds upon the progress made during the MDG period clearly outlining the roles and responsibilities of every stakeholders, the key areas of focus, the targets and outcomes underscoring the role of research and new technologies, and how these can be made available. According to the new framework, there will have to be more than double the resources in the struggle towards elimination with a major focus on domestic financing from both the public and the private sector. In a statement, the AU chairperson and President of Chad Idriss Deby Itno, who is also the Aids Watch Africa (AWA) and chair of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), while officiating the session urged countries to double their efforts to sustain existing donor funding and ramp up domestic resources to ensure the success of the roadmap and implementation of innovative health solutions to eliminate malaria. Though the continent has made strides in reducing the burden of malaria with figures showing a 66% decline in malaria mortality rates since 2000 among all age groups and by 71 % among children under 5 years old, malaria remains one of the top causes of morbidity in pregnant women and mortality in children under 5.
In Uganda, 42 children according to UNICEF die on a daily basis due to malaria and the country has experienced a number of outbreaks in the north and West Nile areas recently. During a media engagement on the side lines of the summit, the executive secretary of ALMA, Joy Phumaphi commended Uganda's efforts in the fight against malaria however highlighting as a major challenge the failure to sustain gains. "Uganda is one of the countries that have an aggressive malaria programme. They are working really hard. But I know that the outbreaks have made sustaining the gains very difficult," Phumaphi said. For the case of Uganda, Phumaphi highlighted the need to streamline and make processes more efficient both within government and between government and partners. Under Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), malaria unlike under the Millenium Development Goals where it was one the major goals, it is one of the over 160 targets raising concerns that it might not be priority especially for funders. Phumaphi however maintained that a recent study by a group of over 100 economists and 17 Nobel laureates scored all the SDGs and showed that the malaria target has one of the highest returns on investment. She further explained that according to the study Investment on prevention and treatment of malaria for example showed that for every $1 you invest, you get $34 in return. "We are not saying that the fight against malaria is more important than the other targets. But given the rate of return, if you are able to control malaria as quickly as possible, you will actually fre up resources to effectively target the other SDGs. That is the strongest argument," Phumaphi said.
one of the tools that the AU has introduced under the Catalytic Framework is a scorecard on domestic financing. It shows, not only the amount of public expenditure allocation but as a percentage and per capita spending on health in a given country. Uganda like most of the other African countries spends about 9% of its total budget to health below the Abuja declaration of 15% with a very high dependence on donor funding for most malaria interventions.
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