Malaria costs Africa billions of dollars, report says

Africa's GDP would be up to US $100 billion greater this year if malaria had been eliminated 35 years ago, says a report released on Tuesday by WHO, Harvard University and the London School
of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

"The evidence strongly suggests that malaria obstructs overall economic development in Africa," the report's co-author, Jeffrey Sachs, told the African Summit on Roll Back Malaria (RBM) which was held in Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday.

"Since 1990, the per person GDP in many sub-Saharan African countries has declined, and malaria is an important reason for this poor economic performance," Sachs, who is the director of the Centre for International Development at Harvard University, noted.

Statistical estimates in the joint report suggest that sub-Saharan Africa's GDP would be up to 32 per cent higher this year if malaria - which, WHO says, kills up to a million people in Africa annually - had been eliminated 35 years ago.

"This would represent up to US $100 billion added to sub-Saharan Africa's current GDP of US $300 billion," the report said. "This extra US $100 billion would be, by comparison, nearly five times greater than all development aid provided to Africa last year."

"Malaria is hurting the living standards of Africans today and is also preventing the improvement of living standards for the future generations," WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland said. "This is an unnecessary and preventable handicap on the continent's economic development."

Roll Back Malaria, a campaign launched in 1998 by WHO, is aimed at halving deaths from malaria by the year 2010.

It "aims to help African families create a mosquito-free zone in the home through the use of nets, drapes or bed nets treated with insecticide," Acting Project Manager for RBM, Awash Teklehaimanot, said. "Our goal is to ensure that every person at risk of malaria in Africa is protected with an insecticide-treated bed net within the next five years."