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World Malaria Day 2012 Theme: "Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria"
The above represents an umbrella theme under which partners are invited to add their own slogan to reflect their particular areas of interest or engagement and audiences.Below is a selection of evidence points which partners are encouraged to use along with the quotes and other resources listed at the end of the document. Sustain Gains National and international efforts to tackle malaria are working. Thanks to the rapid scale up of life-saving interventions we have seen a consistent reduction in global malaria cases and deaths over the last five years. Within the last decade, malaria death rates in Africa alone have dropped by one-third, while 35 of the 53 countries affected by malaria outside of Africa have successfully cut cases by more than 50%. These gains, whilst encouraging, are fragile. It is vital that efforts are sustained and expanded through a combination of increased national and international political will, investment on the ground and support for ongoing research and development for new and better tools to combat emerging threats like drug and insecticide resistance. Save lives Around half the world's population is at risk from malaria. It is a preventable and treatable disease, but it still claims the life of a child every minute. Over 90% of all deaths from malaria are in Africa. Just by scaling up efforts to prevent malaria, including universal coverage of mosquito nets, we will save the lives of an estimated three million African children by 2015. Many more lives can be saved through a combination of proven and innovative malaria control tools including access to effective prevention, accurate diagnosis and prompt, reliable anti-malaria treatment. Successful malaria control has a dramatic impact on the health, productivity and wellbeing of people living in malaria risk areas. Not only will we save lives, we will help advance progress towards other key development goals including increasing maternal and child survival, improving health of people living with HIV, reducing school absenteeism and fighting poverty. Invest in malaria Malaria tools offer us some of the most cost-effective health interventions in the world today. Insecticide-treated mosquito nets, for example, are simple, inexpensive tools that have been proven to cut child deaths by over 20% and malaria cases by half. Studies show 96% of people who have mosquito nets use them. The impact of malaria on economic growth and development is immense, costing families, businesses and nations dearly. Estimates show malaria negatively impacts GDP by as much as 1.3% in high-burden countries. Conversely, African businesses investing in malaria control have seen strong return on investment with significantly reduced sickness and absenteeism. one study has shown an average of 28% annual internal rate of return (IRR*). *IRR is a rate to measure and compare the profitability of investments. Many malaria-endemic countries have increased domestic spending on control efforts: 42 countries increased spending by US$ 1000 per capita between 2000 and 2010. But more is needed: if just 1% of domestic funding in endemic countries was made available for malaria control, 75 countries could provide enough insecticide-treated nets to cover everyone at risk. National and international commitment to scale-up the proven, cost-effective tools we have to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria must be maintained. If not, we risk reversing today's gains and loosing countless more lives to this preventable, treatable disease. Key quotes - relevant and available for use by partners "The global campaign against malaria has shown what is possible when the international community joins forces on multiple fronts to tackle a disease that takes its heaviest toll on poor and underprivileged populations... The advances of recent years show that the battle against malaria can be won." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon "We cannot take recent successes [in fighting malaria] for granted. Gains are fragile. Sustaining them will require our continued commitment, innovative thinking and financial support... we will need to push even harder to sustain the benefits of prevention, press further to reduce infections, invest in human capacity and ensure universal access to diagnostics and treatment, all while aiming to eliminate the disease in as many places as possible." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon | | "If we take full advantage of the malaria prevention and control tools we have today, while mitigating potential threats through constant vigilance and timely response, then we will sustain and extend the remarkable gains that have been made. The citizens of malaria-endemic countries are all counting on us. We must not let them down." Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General | | "With malaria deaths in Africa having fallen significantly since 2000, the return on our investment to end malaria deaths has been greater than any I have experienced in the business world. But one child still dies every minute from malaria - and that is one child and one minute too many." Raymond G Chambers, UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Malaria | | "We need a fully-resourced Global Fund, new donors, and endemic countries to join forces and address the vast challenges that lie ahead. Millions of bed nets will need replacement in the coming years, and the goal of universal access to diagnostic testing and effective treatment must be realized. We need to act with urgency and resolve to ensure that no-one dies from malaria for lack of a 5 dollar bed net, 1 dollar antimalarial drug and a 50 cent diagnostic test." Dr Robert Newman, Director of WHO's Global Malaria Programme | | "I'm calling on the private sector to be more active in the fight against malaria. This issue is important to everyone who lives and works on the African continent, so we need to see every company involved." Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Roll Back Malaria Partnership Goodwill Ambassador | | | | |
Sustaining malaria control efforts is an investment in development. Continued investment in malaria control now will propel malaria-endemic countries toward near-zero deaths by 2015 and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, especially those relating to improving child survival and maternal health, eradicating extreme poverty and expanding access to education.
On World Malaria Day, everyone in the malaria community, from district health officers to net manufacturers, epidemiologists to volunteer health workers, are committed to continuing the fight to reduce the burden of malaria.
Data Sources The WHO World Malaria Report 2011 factsheet is here: http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report_2011/WMR2011_factsheet.pdf WHO World Malaria Report 2011 Q&A here: http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report_2011/WMR2011_qa.pdf
Forward to RBM P&I series report ?Decade of Partnership and Results? Sept 2011http://www.rbm.who.int/ProgressImpactSeries/docs/report8-en.pdf |
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Central Vietnam responding to The World Malaria Day, April 25, 2009
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