$3bn Ploughed Into Fight Against Malaria

World leaders yesterday announced an ambitious plan to end all malaria deaths by 2015, backed by unprecedented funding of nearly $3bn (£1.6bn) from donors, including the World Bank and the Gates Foundation.

A key part of the strategy is the introduction of a vaccine against the deadly disease, which is now just entering the final stage of trials. Although the vaccine is expected to be only partially effective, it will still save thousands of lives.

A donation of $168.7m from Bill Gates today ensures that scientists will go on to develop further vaccines in the hope, eventually, of being able to give total immunity to all babies in affected countries soon after birth.

Yesterday's announcements at a UN special summit on the millennium development goals in New York, attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, together with the presidents of Rwanda and Tanzania, Gordon Brown and other leaders, sets the bar in the fight against malaria higher than ever before.

With tools that are now proven to work, such as long-lasting, insecticide-impregnated bed nets, indoor spraying against malarial mosquitoes, and new drugs as well as the expected vaccine, it is now hoped not only to bring malaria under control by 2010 but to eliminate deaths from the disease.

Brown called the strategy launch "a real and vital turning point" which "brings together a new coalition of forces - government, the private sector and NGOs - to ensure we all rise to the challenge of eradicating malaria deaths by 2015". One million people die every year of malaria, most of them in Africa.

The largest slice of the new money comes from the Global Fund, a body which finances the fight against Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, which has approved $1.62bn in country grants over two years and then the World Bank, which is putting $1.1bn into Africa over three years.

The Bank is focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, where 30%-40% of all malaria deaths occur. Group president Robert Zoellick said endemic malaria also had serious financial consequences for families.

"Malaria preys on the poor and keeps them poor. Poverty prevents people from buying bed nets to prevent malaria and medicine to cure it," he said. "When people are struck by the disease, parents miss work, children miss school and malaria emergencies plunge families into debt from which they can't recover."

Bed nets, sprays and artemisinin drugs, derived from the Chinese wormwood plant, have all helped bring malaria rates down in some smaller countries, but a vaccine could have the biggest impact.

The one about to enter final trials, which is being tested on 16,000 babies aged five to 17 months in a number of countries, seven of them in Africa, is the result of a public/private partnership by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals with the backing of the Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI). It has been shown to reduce malaria cases by 30% and halve the numbers of children getting severe malaria.

Christian Loucq, director of MVI, said the new vaccine, currently known only as RTS,S, could be available by 2013, if it is swiftly approved by the European licensing authority and then the World Health Organization, as seems likely. But the money from the Gates Foundation is a recognition of MVI's plans to engage researchers on the development of an even better vaccine.

"I'm very hopeful that the malaria vaccine currently in advanced testing will be proven effective, but that will just be the first step," said Bill Gates. "Now it's time to develop a new generation of vaccines that could someday eradicate malaria altogether."