United Nations Radio

The Roll Back Malaria Partnership reports that there has been progress in expanding the funding to fight malaria to 1.2 billion dollars a year.

That's a 20-fold increase from ten years ago. But Jan van Erps says the Partnership wants to double that funding to 3.4 billion dollars a year in order to ensure that the targets of 80 percent coverage with bed nets and treatment with the more effective Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy are achieved by 2010.

"Those two offensives with the insecticidal nets and the Chinese traditional medicine that we want to frontload, meaning we have to put all the money massively on an account and buy the drugs and the nets in high quantities and then ship them to the villages."

Mr. van Erps adds that malaria is a global burden, with nearly 40 per cent of the world's population at risk. Nearly 60 percent of the cases are in Africa. But last year the World Health Assembly decided to globalize what was previously Africa Malaria Day, because the disease is also a problem in Asia and South America. So today is the first World Malaria Day.

Reporting for UN Radio, I'm Bissera Kostova.

(duration: 1'10")