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The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Zanzibar, Tanzania, signed a US $781,220 agreement last week with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to introduce modern anti-malaria drug treatments to the islands and train its doctors and nurses.
Zanzibar, located off the coast of mainland Tanzania, is home to about one million people. An estimated 6,000 children under five die from malaria every year, and thousands of young women are at severe risk of malaria during pregnancy due to physiological changes and weakened immune systems, the Global Fund reported.
The Global Fund said that the radical shift from mono- to combination-therapy of this initiative had been carefully designed and prepared by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, in cooperation with key international partners, such as the World Health Organisation, the UN Children's Fund, and Population Services International, a US-based NGO specialising in the social marketing of health-related products, including malaria nets and condoms.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said it believed that the impact and results of this initiative would manifest very quickly in Zanzibar, thereby saving the lives of thousands of young children and pregnant women.
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