Funds and Bed Nets Are Critical to Sustain the Gains Against Malaria

Our partners at the World Health Organization released theWorld Malaria Report 2012 yesterday. While there is some news to celebrate, the findings also present all of us with a serious challenge. 

In the past decade, widespread funding for and use of malaria prevention and treatment tools has saved an estimated 1.1 million lives. That is truly something to celebrate. 

At the same time, funding to fight malaria and procure and deliver long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets is slowing down. Fewer life-saving bed nets are getting to families who need them. Millions of bed nets are reaching the end of their three-year lifespans and will need to be replaced. Billions more dollars are needed to keep malaria prevention momentum going. We are facing a critical moment in the fight against malaria. Now is the time to sustain the gains against this deadly disease. Campaigns such as Nothing But Nets and investment by governments in The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the President’s Malaria Initiative are more important than ever. 

Bed nets are still one of the simplest, most cost-effective tools in the fight against malaria. The World Health Organization reports that 90 percent of families with a bed net use it. Today’s report estimates about half of families in sub-Saharan African sleep beneath an insecticide-treated bed net, the same as last year. We are committed to making sure that every family in Africa can sleep safe from malaria.  

We are so grateful to the thousands of caring supporters like you who have helped raise more than $45 million to help Nothing But Netsand its UN partners distribute over 7 million nets to families in countries across Africa. Together, we must do more. Nothing But Nets will redouble our work to send nets and save lives.

With our amazing partners and friends, I still believe can end malaria in this generation.