US $20 million World Bank boost to fight malaria

The Zambian government has signed a US $20 million loan agreement with the World Bank (WB) to fund a five-year booster project to combat malaria, which kills 50,000 of its people every year and causes 40 percent of infant deaths. After signing the agreement with the WB on Monday in the capital, Lusaka, acting Finance and National Planning Minister Felix Mutati said the money would not only help the government fight the killer disease, but also free more funds for development programmes. The initiative is part of the country's national malaria strategic plan for 2006-2011 to scale up interventions to combat the disease and provide 80 percent of the target population with prevention measures and effective treatment in the next three years. According to Hart Schafer, World Bank country director for Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, "Malaria is not only a health issue, it is a growth issue, it is an economic issue; labour productivity is affected, tourism potential is affected, children's learning is affected." The malaria booster project is aimed at increasing access to, and use of, malaria prevention and treatment by people across the country's 72 districts. The priority groups are children aged under five, pregnant women and those infected with malaria. Zambia's efforts to combat the disease are in line with the global 'Roll Back Malaria' campaign, launched in 1998 by the World Health Organisation, the UN Children's Fund, the UN Development Fund and the World Bank. The campaign has set a goal of reducing the malaria burden by 50 percent, compared to a baseline set by the number of cases in 2000.