25 November 2010
The UK government has announced aid to protect nearly 5 million people in Ghana from malaria, including nearly 1 million children under the age of five.
The British government will support a UNICEF programme to distribute over 2 million life-saving bednets as well as teach communities the importance of sleeping under them.
Ghana is a malaria hot spot with 3 million suspected cases of malaria are reported every year. In 2007 malaria accounted for 22% of deaths of children under five and 9% of all maternal deaths.
Making the announcement during an official visit to Ghana, International Development Minister, Stephen O'Brien said:
"It's a scandal that more than 850,000 people die every year from malaria which is a preventable disease - in Africa a child dies from malaria every 45 seconds.
"Ending preventable deaths from the disease is a priority for British Government and making better progress in high burden countries such as Ghana will be crucial to our efforts.
"This support alone will save the lives of an estimated 15,000 children by giving them a bed net to sleep under and teaching them the importance of using it.
In September Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, announced that the UK will help halve the number of deaths caused by malaria in at least 10 African countries by 2015 at the UN MDG summit in New York .
In December, the Department for International Development (DFID) will launch a road map of how this drastic reduction in malaria deaths will be achieved and sustained.
The road map will focus on malaria hot-spots - high burden countries which account for 98% of all malarial deaths. It will also support measures to reduce the spread of resistance to malaria drugs which threatens progress.
In the past vital resources for malaria have been wasted because poor diagnostics mean anti-malarial treatments are given to people who have fever but do not actually have malaria . The Government has committed to improving the diagnosis and treatment of malaria to ensure the most effective interventions reach the most vulnerable people.
International Development Minister Stephen O'Brien visited the Northern region of Ghana on 23 November. He was able to see the success of a previous distribution of bed nets in Gbugli and meet staff and patients at a health clinic in Kumbungu to hear the challenges they face.
The UK government will provide £10 million for the procurement and distribution of 2.35 million long lasting insecticide treated bed nets (LLINs) during the Universal Access to Bed Nets Campaign scheduled for April 2011. This support, which is to be channelled through UNICEF, will assist the country reach its goal of reducing the burden of malaria by 75% by 2015. Through this funding an estimated 4.7 million people, of which 940,000 are expected to be children under 5 years of age, will have access to the treated bed nets.
Please view these links for more information on what DFID is doing on malaria. http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/News-Stories/2010/Clegg-UK-to-lead-global-efforts-to-combat-malaria/
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Media-Room/News-Stories/2010/UK-aid-to-combat-malaria/ http://consultation.dfid.gov.uk/malaria2010/
An estimated 240 million annual cases of malaria lead to 2300 preventable deaths every day and over 850,000 deaths every year - nearly 90% of them occur in Africa and most of them are children.
A child in Africa dies from malaria every 45 seconds. One in six child deaths in Africa is due to malaria.
Malaria accounts for 40% of all heath care costs in many African countries, placing huge burdens on households and already struggling health facilities. Malaria costs the continent of Africa $12 billion per year.
Malaria is shown to have a detrimental effect on the economy, reducing a high burden country's GDP by as much as 1.3%.
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