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Anti-malaria drive saving lives: WHO

15 December 2010

A “phenomenal expansion” in efforts to curtail malaria is saving hundreds of thousands of lives each year, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

The disease still killed an estimated 781,000 people in 2009 — including about 650,000 children younger than five — but that figure has been reduced from 985,000 in 2000, the UN health agency said.

The distribution of millions of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and increased spraying against the insects is having a dramatic impact, according to the WHO’s World Malaria Report 2010 report.

Forty-two percent of African households now have a treated anti-mosquito net and 11 African nations have showed a greater than 50 percent reduction in confirmed malaria cases or malaria admissions and deaths over the past decade.

“The phenomenal expansion in access to malaria control interventions is translating directly into lives saved,” added Ray Chambers, the UN special envoy for malaria.

He predicted that a UN goal of ending malaria deaths by 2015 could be achieved.

International spending in the war on malaria is predicted to peak at 1.8 billion dollars in 2010, but WHO estimates that about six billion dollars a year is needed to wipe out the disease.

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