The international community is winning the fight against malaria which claims more than a million lives a year, a public private funding partnership claimed Tuesday, according to dpa. New figures published in Geneva Tuesday by The Global Fund, which provides resources to treat the disease, showed that increased provision of mosquito nets and drugs was helping reduce the number of victims. The programme had delivered 46 million bed nets to families at risk in 2007, a 155 per cent increase over last year's figure of 18 million. Tanzania had seen death rates fall by 50 per cent in under fives between 2002 and 2007, Eritrea had seen a decline of 70 per cent of cases since 2001, and a 60 per cent fall in the deaths of children under five. In the five years between 2001 and 2006, Burundi had seen the number of cases cut by 40 per cent. The Global Fund Executive Director Dr Michel Kazatchkine said: "The results show that we are on the right path not to totally eradicate malaria but to suppress it as a major health problem in a number of countries, where its endemic, in the next few years." The Global Fund had approved financing for 146 programmes in 78 countries worth more than 3.6 billion US dollars over five years. It also provided money for drugs to treat approximately 44 million malaria sufferers. Insecticide treated nets is considered one of the most cost- effective ways to prevent malaria. "Our challenge is to make bed nets available for everyone at risk of malaria, especially children and pregnant women," said Kazatchkine. He also hoped greater competition in drugs supplies would bring down the price next year. The organization said the efforts of national governments and a number of agencies such as UNICEF, the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies and the World Bank, were all helping drive down the number of deaths from malaria.
