Cuts to the world’s biggest funder of malaria prevention, including by the UK government, could lead to almost a million more deaths by 2030 – including 750,000 children, a report has warned.
It could also drive losses of $83 billion (£62bn) in national economies across Africa, and cost billions in extra trade with the rich countries making up the G7.
On 21 November the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which provides 59 per cent of all international malaria funds, will hold a summit with the aim of raising $18bn (£13.5bn) for the next three years. The event will be co-hosted by the UK and South Africa.
Historically one of the fund’s biggest contributors, the UK is widely expected to cut its contribution this year, amid major cuts to foreign aid.
A report by the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) and Malaria No More UK estimated that if the Global Fund could no longer pay for malaria prevention, only treatment, almost one million more people would die by 2030 with 750,000 of them being children under five.
In the event that the Global Fund raised 80 per cent of what it did last time, that would still amount to more than 80,000 additional deaths.
The disease kills roughly 600,000 people a year, with the vast majority being children under five.
“We are really at a very momentous time in human history,” said Joy Phumaphi, executive secretary of AMLA and former health minister of Botswana. “There are tools that are available that can actually facilitate the elimination of malaria,” she said, including new vaccines, more effective insecticide- treated bed nets and the use of drones to kill mosquito larvae in standing water.
But, she added, “one of our biggest challenges at the moment is financing”.
“The thing with a disease like malaria…we don’t have to drop by very much in terms of investments in order for [cases] to spiral out of control,” Ms Phumaphi said. “If we don’t sustain the same level of coverage, we are going to have a crisis”.
When Donald Trump slashed virtually all foreign aid spending, his administration said it would protect lifesaving work including malaria drugs. But the US cut much of the staff, transportation and other systems needed to get the medicines to people.
“You having the life-saving intervention, but not having the vehicles that are going to deliver it to that little baby in the rural areas is not really going to be very helpful to that little baby,” Ms Phumaphi said.
In some countries, parents are left being asked to pay out of pocket for treatments they cannot afford.
And while African governments are trying to take over, most do not have the funds to fully plug the gaps left by the withdrawal of aid.
