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Developing Countries: Malaria

Volume 492: debated on Thursday 14 May 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps his Department is taking to tackle malaria in the developing world. (275002)

The UK Government provide significant support for efforts to reduce malaria. We have committed £1 billion from 2008 to 2015 to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, as well as directly supporting developing countries, research and other international organisations. To date we have provided £49 million in support to the Roll Back Malaria partnership. We are providing £40 million for the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria (AMFm)—a financing mechanism to make effective malaria drugs available and affordable through public, private and non-governmental channels. The UK is also providing 20 million extra bed nets towards achieving the goal of universal bed net coverage by 2010.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what support his Department is giving to developing countries for measures to reduce the number of deaths from malaria. (275026)

The UK Government's support to reduce the number of deaths from malaria is provided through global partnerships; multilateral agencies; and bilateral country programmes. Most of these are for both the treatment of malaria and reduction of incidence, including through widespread use of insecticide treated mosquito nets (ITNs).

We have committed £1 billion from 2008 to 2015 to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. The UK is also providing 20 million extra bed nets towards achieving the goal of universal bed net coverage by 2010. Our bilateral programmes focus on giving support to countries to develop strong and sustainable health systems that are able to scale-up the coverage of treatment including artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) and ITNs. In Kenya our support includes the purchase and distribution of 14 million ITNs and 5 million re-treatment kits. In Mozambique our support will help reach their Ministry of Health's target of 95 per cent. ITN coverage for pregnant women and children under five in at least one province and at least 60 per cent. in two other provinces.