HEALTH: African leaders want US $1 billion a year for malaria

African heads of state called this week for at least US $ 1 billion US dollars a year to be made available to the WHO-led Roll Back Malaria movement in Africa to help achieve its aims of halving malaria deaths by the end of the decade. The call was made on Tuesday in the final declaration of a summit on malaria in Abuja, Nigeria. At the summit, up to US $750 million dollars in extra funds were pledged. Funds were identified by Britain, Canada, the United States, the World Bank and other sources, according to a news release posted on the Roll Back Malaria website. [http://mosquito.who.int/cgi-bin/rbm/login_rbm.jsp?] The African leaders called on the world to cancel the debt of poor and heavily indebted countries to enable them to fight the poverty caused by malaria. The summit declaration also called on development partners to invest in malaria vaccine development in Africa and strengthen research.