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The dawn of a new era for malaria elimination ... A new parliamentary report proposes the possibility of eliminating malaria within a generation – but only if the UK continues to lead the way

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

The dawn of a new era for malaria elimination ... A new parliamentary report proposes the possibility of eliminating malaria within a generation – but only if the UK continues to lead the way IMAGE The UK needs to welcome a new dawn for malaria elimination. Photograph: Jon Ingall/Alamy Last week, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (APPMG) published its last report in this electoral cycle, titled ‘Malaria in 2014: An Unprecedented Opportunity at the Dawn of a New Era’. As we approach the UK general election and the final negotiations over the Sustainable Development Goals, which will replace the soon to expire Millennium Development Goals, the report offers some timely reflections on the UK’s crucial role in the fight against malaria. The Group is made up of members of Parliament with a special interest in the fight against malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). It acts as a forum for experts, academics and civil society groups to inform parliamentarians about progress being made, and the key issues around, combating these diseases. In turn, the group exists to challenge the UK government and Department for International Development (DFID) to continue to prioritise malaria and NTDs. This latest APPMG report highlights some of the advances in reducing deaths and sickness caused by malaria in recent years. The most important of these is that, according to the World Health Organisation, deaths among children in sub-Saharan Africa have fallen by 54% since 2000 and malaria has been eliminated in four countries. This progress has been as a result of a huge scale up of international resources, led to a large extent by the British government, who are the second largest national malaria donor after the US. The UK has, in fact, tripled its funding since 2008, culminating in a commitment of £1bn to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria for 2014-16. The government has also increased the proportion of gross national income that it spends on aid to 0.7%, becoming the only G7 country to join this exclusive club which otherwise includes Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Luxembourg. It is crucial, as the report emphasises, that the UK maintains this impressive leadership role and strong financial commitment to malaria in the coming years. Through the Malaria Framework for Results, the government pledged to increase malaria funding up to £500m per year by 2015, and Malaria Consortium hopes that this goal will be realised within the next year. With the existing tools at our disposal, as well as exciting innovations such as the first effective malaria vaccine due to become available in 2015, we have the opportunity to build on recent progress and accelerate towards the elimination of malaria in more countries. The biggest challenge remains the funding gap between the $1.97bn committed by the international community in 2013 to fighting malaria, and the $5.1bn per year which WHO estimates is needed to defeat the disease. It is in this context that the UK must continue its own financing of malaria interventions, while also using its position as a leader to encourage other countries, as well as the EU, to increase their spending on malaria control especially in light of the growing resistance of mosquitos to insecticide and parasite resistance to antimalarial drugs. Maintaining the political will of the UK government will be crucial over the next parliament, and Malaria Consortium is confident that the APPMG will reform after the general election and continue its good work. The stakes are high but the potential rewards are huge. Besides the value of such an investment in millions of lives saved: the report quotes a recent estimate which suggests the net economic return on malaria investment could be over $200bn by 2035. Next year [2015] will be a crucial one – a dawn of a new era. With the UK general election, the conclusion of the MDGs and the finalisation of the new Global Malaria Action Plan and Global Technical Strategy, the structures will be in place for the final push to eliminate malaria. Content produced and managed by Malaria Consortium