Today The Lancet has published a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle which uses a new model to estimate global malaria deaths.

The study estimates over 1.2 million lives were lost to malaria in 2010, almost twice the estimates used by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its most recent malaria report. Whilst both approaches maintain that the majority of lives lost to malaria are in Africa – which bears 91% of all deaths – and amongst young children. The difference in the IHME’s data is the assumption that higher numbers of older children and adults in heavy-burden malaria areas are dying from the disease.

Whilst the total numbers may be different, “however you look at it, far too many people are dying from malaria,” Professor David Schellenberg, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told the BBC.

But there is good news, as Annemarie Meyer, Programme and Policy Manager at Malaria No More UK explains: “the main trends reported by both the IHME and WHO reports highlight that international efforts to fight malaria are working with a consistent and significant reduction in malaria deaths since 2004. This progress is thanks to investments in efforts to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria, we need to continue to press for more resources to sustain these gains and save more lives.”

Malaria No More UK spoke to a number of experts ahead of the publication of the study. Many of our own policy advisors have also been involved in reviewing and responding to the study data. It is important to note that global malaria data relies on estimates, as Lancet editor Richard Horton pointed out to the BBC this morning, “Right now we don’t actually have any reliable primary numbers for malaria deaths in some of the most malarious regions of the world, so what numbers we have come from estimates.”

Better disease diagnosis and surveillance is needed, ultimately, to remove the reliance on data modeling like these. As Professor David Schellenberg also told the BBC “The introduction of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria, recommended by the WHO in 2010 and increasingly available in endemic countries, affords an unprecedented opportunity to take the guesswork out of malaria diagnosis and to improve the reliability of information.”

Annemarie Meyer adds, “the WHO already recommends that essential malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment should be made available to both adults and children: we all agree that efforts need be increased to reach everyone at risk.”

It is critically important to sustaining and increasing efforts to combat this deadly disease. The IHME study’s authors emphasised the importance of sustaining and increasing efforts to combat malaria, and recognised the contribution of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in achieving success so far. With international financing for malaria, and particularly funding for the Global Fund facing significant shortfalls in meeting the need, it is more important than ever to increase our efforts to sustain international support.

Malaria No More UK, along with the Global Poverty Project and a host of other organisations focussed on tackling HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria have been calling for increased funding for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. We have been asking people to lend their voice to this campaign: to sign a petition and write to their MP to help persuade the British government to announce an increase in financial support for the Fund.

Get involved in our campaign with the Global Poverty Project to help ‘Fund The Fund’

Bonnie Wright asks that people “Join me in taking the challenge to help end extreme poverty!”

On Wednesday 1 February Harry Potter actress Bonnie Wright joined other elegantly dressed diners at a large dining table in Piccadilly Circus to launch Live Below the Line – a campaign that highlights the fact that globally, 1.4 billion people live below the poverty line. In the UK, this means existing on less than £1 a day.

Although at first glance the Piccadilly Circus diners looked as though they were enjoying an affluent al fresco dinner party, on closer inspection, they were being served only a tiny portion of raw vegetables.

Malaria is a leading cause of poverty in Africa, and Malaria No More UK is delighted to be a major partner for Live Below the Line 2012.

We’re encouraging our supporters to take up the challenge and join thousands of others across the UK between 7-11 May, living off £5 for 5 days for all food and drink. By taking part and sharing their daily experiences with others, people living below the line will help bring extreme poverty to the forefront of conversation in homes and workplaces, as well as raising vital funds.

Participants for Malaria No More UK will be able to fundraise for our work investing in lifesaving malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment programmes in Africa.

Find out more or sign up now to Live Below the Line and make malaria no more.

Presidents Sirleaf and Kikwete - ALMA 2012

Yesterday in Addis Ababa, there was a meeting of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) of 41 African heads of state and government working to end malaria-related deaths on the continent. Recent Nobel Prize laureate, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia assumed the chair of ALMA from President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete of the United Republic of Tanzania. President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique was elected Deputy Chair of ALMA.

“The malaria campaign is emerging as a standout success in the effort to improve the health and welfare of mothers and children, but we cannot lose focus now,” said President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. “There is a moral and economic imperative to fill the malaria funding gap.”

Despite a dramatic fall in deaths from malaria over the past ten years, ALMA estimates that there is a gap of USD $3.3 billion in funding needed to achieve and sustain universal coverage of essential malaria interventions including artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) to the end of 2015.

ALMA members agreed to intensify efforts to close financing gaps and made key recommendations and commitments including to:

• Use World Bank IDA allocations to protect health gains and prevent the resurgence of malaria.
• Deepen Africa’s commitment to transparency through the ALMA Scorecard for Accountability and Action, an innovative tool that tracks progress across key health indicators (view the Scorecard http://www.alma2015.org/).
• Increase African financing for health moving toward the Abuja target of allocating 15% of public sector budgets to health.
• Pursue innovative financing approaches to expand the resource pool for health.

Seven ALMA member countries – Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Tanzania – received special recognition for removing all taxes and tariffs on malaria-related commodities, banning dangerous monotherapy treatments, or on making significant progress on malaria control. The awards assessment is done by an independent committee of experts.

The ALMA meeting featured a tribute to President Kikwete, the founding Chairperson of ALMA. “We have come a long way in the fight against malaria,” said President Kikwete of the United Republic of Tanzania. “Many challenges lie ahead, but working with partners we will continue our progress toward creating an Africa where no one dies of a mosquito bite.”

Read President Johnson Sirleaf’s opinion piece in the Huffington Post: Malaria’s Defeat, Africa’s Future

Read President Kikwete’s opinion piece in The Citizen (Tanzania): We can win the fight for maternal & child health in Africa

Today is the meeting of the Africa Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa. 41 African heads of state and government will take decisions on malaria financing challenges and solutions and agree new commitments to the malaria fight. President Sirleaf of Liberia is due to be elected to succeed President Kikwete of Tanzania as ALMA’s Chair. This afternoon, the two Presidents will speak at a press conference to share ALMA’s recommendations on addressing the malaria funding gap, now close to $3.3billion and threatening the momentum of historic progress on fighting malaria which has seen 33% decrease in malaria deaths in Africa over the last decade.

Our Executive Director Sarah Kline reflects on the importance of the meeting and says: “This meeting of African Leaders – now a group 41 strong – is a huge opportunity to highlight how success has been achieved on the ground in the fight against malaria and now what more action is required. It is worrying that there is now such a large malaria funding gap which threatens our future success. Additional funding for malaria needs to come from the leaders of malaria endemic countries, just as we need to see additional funds from international donors including through the Global Fund to fight AIDs, TB and Malaria. We look forward to hearing from African leaders today on their renewed commitment to the fight against malaria.”

Get involved in our campaign with the Global Poverty Project to help ‘Fund The Fund’

Yvonne Chaka Chaka

This weekend The Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria is celebrating its tenth birthday. As we have previously reported, the Fund has achieved tremendous success in the past ten years, but it has also struggled in recent times to secure the funding necessary to save more lives from AIDS, TB and malaria.

The good news is that a number of donors and celebrities have taken the opportunity of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week to voice their support for the Fund. Both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Government of Japan have announced multi-million dollar contributions to the Global Fund. And celebrities from Bono to Bill Clinton have released a video of support testifying to the impact the Fund has made on the health of millions of people in the past 10 years.

The Fund also announced the appointment of a new General Manager, Gabriel Jaramillo, who is well versed in malaria issues, having been working with UN Special Envoy for Malaria (and Malaria No More founder) Ray Chambers over the past year. Mr Jaramillo takes up his post from 1 February and will oversee the management of the Global Fund’s investments – around $10 billion planned during the funding period of 2011-2013, up from $8 billion between 2008 and 2010.

Meanwhile closer to home the Shadow International Development Secretary of State, Ivan Lewis MP, has called for the International Development Select Committee to hold a one-off inquiry to examine, “the effect the Global Fund’s spending freeze is having on DFID’s targets for tackling HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria as well as how best the international community could come together to find a workable solution to ensure ten years of progress are not put at risk.” An inquiry could help clarify when the British government might announce its increased funding for the Global Fund – something we and The Global Poverty Project are keen to see happen very shortly.

Also at Davos this week, internationally re-known singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka has been honoured by the World Economic Forum for her humanitarian work with women and children, in particular for malaria control. Malaria No More UK has been a fan of Yvonne’s for quite a while – we organised the global premiere of her film and a number of high profile media interviews for her in London in 2010. Congratulations to Yvonne!

Take a look at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s infographic on a decade of The Global Fund
Get involved in our campaign with the Global Poverty Project to help ‘Fund The Fund’

Yesterday a number of the our team joined our friends at the Global Poverty Project to hear Bill Gates launch his annual letter setting out his priorities for the year.

Speaking to a packed house at London School of Economics, Bill Gates spoke passionately about the need to invest in new technology to overcome challenges we all face to help feed the world and to reduce the suffering and death caused by diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. He highlighted the incredible achievement of India this year – marking a year since the last case of polio in the country – and the possibilty now that polio could be eradicated (making it only the second disease after small pox for which this woud be achieved). And he ended by renewing his own commmitment to international aid, referring to his report to the G20 about innovative financing.

Bill Gates called on governments and other stakeholders to also increase not decrease their aid and investment in organisations such as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. He spoke about the UK Government’s historic commitment to achieving 0.7% Gross National ncomeI for aid by 2013/14: a pledge we and The Global Poverty Project hope to see enshrined in law this year.

The event at the LSE was streamed online and questions and comments were sent over twitter using #BillsLetter.

Find out more:
Read Bill’s letter
Learn more about the Gates Foundation’s work on malaria
Get involved in our campaign with the Global Poverty Project to help ‘Fund The Fund’

This month sees the launch of our brand new Faith Toolkit – a practical resource to provide faith groups with all they need to raise awareness and funds to help save lives from malaria. The Faith Toolkit has been developed by Faiths Act Fellows Charlotte and Usman who are based at Malaria No More UK this year, helping to engage and unite different faith communities across the UK in the fight against malaria.

The Faith Toolkit is designed to help congregations and interfaith groups to find out more about malaria – a preventable disease that claims the life of a child every minute. It sets out plenty of ideas to get involved from raising awareness amongst friends to organising a fundraising event or activity by bringing together local faiths groups. For those interested in taking multifaith action, the Faith Toolkit is a practical guide for working with other faith groups and includes links to lots of useful resources.

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of the New North London Synagogue has been working with Charlotte and Usman on their multifaith initiatives and gives his support to the launch of the Faith Toolkit saying, “There can be no higher ideal in today’s world than for all of us, from our different faiths, to honour God’s presence in every single life, by working together to protect the vulnerable and heal disease”.

The Faith Toolkit has been kindly designed by graphic designer and Malaria No More UK supporter Beth Williams. Following her sterling efforts in the Cardiff Half Marathon last October when she fundraised over £300, Beth has offered her time and design skills to support the creation of our Faith Toolkit.

Download the Faith Toolkit now and begin planning your multifaith initiatives to tackle malaria

Volunteers hanging up nets in Aboabusu, Ghana

On 28 January 2012 the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria will celebrate its tenth birthday. The Fund accounts for around two thirds of all international aid funding for malaria and is vital to helping prevent, diagnose and treat the disease.

It is hard to visualise the sheer scale of what the Fund has achieved through the support of its donors (including the British and American governments) and partners in developing countries. An unprecedented global health initiative, the Fund has saved almost 8 million lives in the past ten years.

Some incredible figures:

• Since 2002 the Global Fund has distributed over 190 million insecticide treated nets for the prevention of malaria. And malaria deaths have dropped 26% in the last decade.
• The Global fund has treated over 8.2 million cases of Tuberculosis since 2002.
• Forty eight percent of all people on AIDS treatment depend on the Global Fund to receive their medication.

A strong, well funded, Global Fund is critical to achieving an end to the suffering and death caused by malaria. In Ghana, for example, where we are supporting Government efforts to get everyone in the country access to a mosquito net, the Global Fund is playing a vital role in helping fund nets for distribution. Without the support of the Global Fund, Ghana simply could not achieve its malaria goals. In addition to its essential support for malaria prevention, testing and treatment in Ghana, the Global Fund also provides critical core support to the national malaria control programme, the key coordinating body in Ghana’s fight against the disease and one of our principal partners.

The UK Government is a key supporter of the Global Fund, ranking it highly effective in last year’s multilateral aid review. We should be proud of the UK Government’s record of supporting this unprecedented initiative and take this opportunity to celebrate success so far. However, there is still much more to do for all three diseases. Today, the Global Fund is facing significant resource challenges and the success already achieved in the fight against malaria is threatened by lack of future funding. We are encouraging the UK Government and all donors to look at the results the Global Fund has already achieved and increase support; and more broadly to sustain and increase funding to tackle malaria.

In the past few months we have partnered with the Global Poverty Project to encourage supporters to write to their MPs. 233 letters have been sent to MPs and more than 700 people have signed our petition calling on the Government to increase its support for the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria. We will continue to work with other organisations across the globe this year to call on all governments to support the Global Fund and to help it continue its vital work.

Our supporters letters also thank MPs for the cross party commitment to achieving the spending target of 0.7 GNI for aid by 2013/14. This issue will be the subject of discussion in Parliament in the coming months and we are keen to see the British government enshrine into law its commitment to achieving 0.7 and sustaining this commitment in the years ahead. We are working with a broad coalition of other organisations to campaign on this issue and to support Living Proof, a campaign to showcase the progress being made in development.

Sign the petition to ‘Fund The Fund’
Visit theglobalfund.org

Nowhere To Hide has been created on a shoestring of goodwill thanks to the generous time and talent provided at low or no cost from creative agency Kindred, award winning wildlife photographer David Maitland and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine whose state of the art Malaria Centre provided mosquitoes and a setting for the shoot. Maitland, a well seasoned insect photographer says: “I’ve travelled in many tropical climates, been bitten by mosquitoes and seen the impact of malaria. It’s a truly awful disease and I’m proud to do my bit to help support such an important cause.”

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