PHA-Exchange> UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY RECEIVES UPDATE ON ROLL BACK MALARIA INITIATIVE

[Claudio]

From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern.weitzel at undp.org>

> UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY RECEIVES UPDATE ON ROLL BACK MALARIA INITIATIVE
> New York, Sep 12 2005  4:00PM
> The international community should provide anti-malarial medicines and
nets to malaria-endemic
> countries free of
cost.<"http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=A/60/208">report .
>
> This should be done by increasing funding for the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and
> Malaria and other mechanisms, "for insecticide-treated mosquito nets,
insecticides for indoor
> residual spraying for malaria control and effective anti-malarial
combination treatments to be fully
> accessible and free of charge, as public goods, for all populations
exposed to malaria," Mr. Annan says.
>
> The affected countries should "pursue a rapid scale-up of prevention by
applying expeditious and
> cost-effective approaches, including targeted free or highly subsidized
distribution of materials
> and medicines to vulnerable groups, with the aim of ensuring that at least
60 per cent of pregnant
> women receive intermittent preventive treatment and at least 60 per cent
of those at risk use
> insecticide-treated nets, wherever that is the vector-control method of
choice;" he says.
>
> Those countries also should recruit, train and retain an adequate number
of health care personnel to
> achieve the targets of the April 2000 Abuja Declaration to Roll Back
Malaria in Africa and the
> development goals of the September 2000 UN Millennium Declaration, the
report to the GA says.
>
> The<"http://www.rbm.who.int/cgi-bin/rbm/rbmportal/custom/rbm/home.do">
Roll Back Malaria Partnership
> secretariat, hosted by the UN World Health Organization (WHO), has
developed an overarching Global
> Strategic Plan 2005-2015, which charts the way to achieve 80 per cent
coverage of populations with
> all Partnership interventions, a 50 per cent reduction in the disease
burden by 2010, and the
> achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halting the
spread by 2015 and reducing
> the burden even further.
>
> Malaria endemic countries should increase, where possible, domestic
funding for malaria control and
> create favourable conditions for work with the private sector on access to
good-quality services.
>
The international
> community is to expand access to artemisinin-based combination therapy for
populations at risk of
> exposure to resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum malaria.
>
> Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya have been stepping up their cultivation of the
plant yielding
> artemisinin, Artemisia annua, to meet the surge in demand to 30 million
treatment courses in 2005
> from 2 million courses in 2003, it says.