The Global Malaria Community has urged Commonwealth leaders to make a game-changing commitment to halve malaria across the Commonwealth within the next five years.
A statement issued by Ready to Beat Malaria, an NGO, to newsmen on Wednesday said the appeal was made at the Malaria Summit London 2018.
The statement said the Summit was being co-hosted by the UK Government, and the Heads of State of Rwanda and Swaziland.
It added that the commitments would prevent 350 million cases of malaria and save 650,000 lives, predominately children and pregnant women who were most at risk.
It said that the global malaria summit took place on the eve of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting as the Commonwealth and its citizens were disproportionally affected by malaria scourge.
The statement noted that Commonwealth and its citizens accounted for more than half of all global malaria cases and deaths, but just one third of the world’s population.
It said: “The call for leaders to be ‘Ready to Beat Malaria at the Malaria Summit’ is expected to profile significant commitments from governments, businesses and philanthropists ready to catalyse progress towards a goal of halving malaria.
“Africa’s stake in this issue is very high, accounting for 90 per cent of malaria cases and 91per cent of malaria deaths.’’
The statement said an analysis by RBM to end malaria partnership revealed that high-burden countries such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo faced significant gaps in financing core malaria interventions.
It added that Nigeria alone accounts for 27 per cent of global malaria cases and faced a financial gap of US$ 1.4 billion to fully implement its national malaria strategic plan.
According to the statement, the summit is being held to galvanise renewed action on the disease as progress has stalled.
It stated: “In 2016, for the first time in a decade, the number of malaria cases in the world was on the rise and in some areas there is a resurgence according to the World Health Organisation.
“Malaria is fighting back as the mosquito and the parasite develop resistance to the interventions we use to fight them.
“This has been compounded by a plateau in global funding for malaria since 2010, climate change, which intensifies incidences of malaria, and acute malaria outbreaks found in areas of crisis, war and conflict.
“To accelerate the fight against this disease there needs to be better deployment of existing tools and development of new and innovative solutions.’’
The statement said the new commitments focuses on three important areas to accelerate the fight against resurgence of the disease.
It enumerated the areas of focus to include increased funding and political leadership, accelerating innovation and better data driven solutions.
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