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Malaria and ONE's Policy Plan

What would your Administration do to aggressively combat malaria?

Malaria kills more than one million people each year – mostly children, infants and pregnant women in Africa. Of the 3.2 billion people that live in areas at risk of malaria, more than 350 million become severely ill each year. About 90% of all malaria deaths globally occur in Africa, where a child dies of the disease every 30 seconds. It is tragic that given all the advanced technology, a mosquito could still cause such an impact.

Evidence for Action

Preventable: For less than $6, a mosquito bed net specially treated with insecticide can be purchased and distributed. Coupling these bed nets with other simple actions such as indoor house spraying with insecticides and treating infections promptly with affordable and effective drugs, could significantly lower the risk of getting malaria and save millions of lives.

Cost-effective: The cost of not employing known prevention techniques is potentially much higher; economists believe that malaria is responsible for a slowing economic growth up to 1.3% per year in some African countries. For comparison, the World Bank reports average Sub-Saharan African GDP growth in 2006 was 5.6%.

Treatable: For those cases that slip by the bed nets, the most effective medicines, ACTs (artemesinin-based combination therapies) costing roughly $2 per dose could treat the men, women and children who fall victim to this disease and dramatically reduce the number of deaths from malaria.

Achieving the Goal

The latest estimate available for malaria needs globally calls for $2.9 billion in 2007 to provide effective treatment and prevention programs, scaling up to $3.7 billion in 2010. The United States provided $248 million in funding for bilateral programs to fight Malaria for FY2007. Though the United States has made commitments to scale up malaria funding, we must ensure delivery of these promises. Filling this gap in funds is needed to prevent millions of needless deaths each year.

Malaria: A Battle Waiting to be Won

The United States should fully fund the current Administration’s Malaria Initiative and ensure sustainable funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tb and Malaria. As we fight Malaria, we should do so in a way that strengthens broader health systems – paying particular attention to health worker shortages – and improvements in health outcomes overall. Our assistance should provide prevention measures, including cost-effective insecticide treated bed nets, and the assurance of treatment with ACTs for those who need it.

Key Facts

Malaria is a preventable and treatable disease, yet it still kills over a million people a year and makes 350 million severely ill. In a world with such advanced technology, it is hard to believe that a mosquito is killing and sickening that many people each year.
Malaria used to wreak havoc across North America, but today it is a distant memory. Our past success proves both that beating malaria is possible and that only enough political will is needed to make it happen.

Important Documents

On The Record's comparison is provided by ONE Action to educate voters about the Presidential candidates' plans on issues of importance to ONE Action's members. Only 501(c)(3) activities are funded by The ONE Campaign.