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This year we need to fight for what counts

This year we need to fight for what counts

It's a crucial time for the fight against malaria, and we’re urging the British Government and other countries around the world to pledge financial support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to help ensure that the world stays on track to end all three epidemics within a generation, to build strong national health systems to better respond to emerging pandemics

The UK has always played a critical role in the battle to eradicate malaria from the planet, and so it should continue.

From the first discovery of mosquito malaria transmission by Sir Ronald Ross in 1897, to the recent development of the world’s first-ever malaria vaccines, led by British pharmaceutical company GSK and Oxford University’s prestigious Jenner Institute. It is essential that Britain maintains investment in cutting-edge science and innovation and continues to play a leading role on the global health stage.

The UK has also been one of the biggest contributors to the Global Fund – an international financing partnership designed to accelerate the end of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as epidemics.

The Global Fund mobilises and invests more than US$4 billion a year to support programs run by local experts in more than 100 countries.

To help accelerate real progress in the fight against the three diseases we’re calling on world leaders, the private sector, and philanthropists, to commit $18 billion to the Global Fund.

Since the Global Fund began 20 years ago it has saved over 44 million lives, and cut the death toll from the three diseases by 40%.

A successful Seventh Replenishment of the Global Fund, due to take place in the United States in Autumn this year, would save a further 20 million lives between 2024 and 2026, reducing the mortality rate by 64 per cent across the three endemic diseases.

Deaths from malaria are at their highest for nearly a decade due to the emergence of new threats – plateaued funding, disruptions in malaria prevention and treatment due to COVID-19, humanitarian emergencies, and growing insecticide resistance reducing the effectiveness of existing tools to fight malaria. A child now dies from the disease every minute. Now is the time for World leaders to stand up and fight for what counts.