17 November 2004, Arusha, Tanzania
I'm Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and Chairman of the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
In the 3 years since the foundation of the Global Fund, we have made excellent progress in fighting these diseases.
Today I would like to speak with you about what we've been doing to fight malaria. Malaria is one of the world's most common - and most serious - tropical diseases.
As you all know, it is the tiny mosquito that transmits malaria. And mosquitoes transmit the disease very effectively : between 300 and 500 million people around the world are infected with malaria each year. And more than 1 million people die every year because of those mosquitoes. 90 percent of these deaths occur in Africa, and most of the victims are children under five.
In fact, malaria kills more young children in sub-Saharan Africa than anything else. Every 30 seconds, malaria takes the life of another African child.
And malaria causes 10,000 maternal deaths each year.
In total, in sub-Saharan Africa, the combined direct and indirect costs of malaria are approximately $ 12 billion per year. Malaria inhibits economic growth by as much as 1.3 percent per year.
The Global Fund is an important source of new financial resources to support malaria control. Over three rounds of funding, the Global Fund Board has approved over $ 475 million, of the new funding supports malaria control efforts in 35 African countries worldwide, the Global Fund supports malaria programs in a total of 41 countries.
But malaria is a diseases that requires many different avenues of confrontation. That's why I am delighted by the work of groups such as the Sumitomo Chemical Company, with their recently begun production of new long-lasting insecticidal treated bed nets. It is through the efforts - and entrepreneurial spirit - of companies and people like them, that we will beat the scourge of malaria.
The Global Fund is working to finance a total of 108 million bed nets. And within the next five years, we expect to have financed 40 million of them.
90 percent of them will help protect African families from transmission of malaria.
And since the spread of resistance to lowest-cost drugs used to treat malaria is one of the factors that contributes to the high rates of malaria and its great economic burden, we are working to deliver 145 million artemisinin-based combination drug treatments for resistant malaria.
Of course, bed nets and drugs are just two of the ways we're fighting malaria. We're also working to increase timely access to effective treatment. We're keeping mosquitoes away and killing them through indoor residual spraying as well as the bed nets. We're working to keep pregnant women healthy. We're doing our best to prevent and control epidemics. And I am confident that we are on the cusp of beating malaria.
Thank you.