April 25 is World Malaria Day, an annual observance in recognition of global efforts to control the disease. Malaria, which is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito, is a serious but treatable and preventable illness that nonetheless kills too many of its victims.
“Malaria is really a problem globally, but the majority of cases are in the continent of Africa,” said Dr. David Walton, the U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator in a recent interview.
“There are about 608,000 people who died last year of Malaria and about 200 … almost 250 million cases.”
Seventy-five percent of those deaths were children under five years old.
The United States is the largest contributor to Malaria prevention and control, said Dr. Walton. And “The U.S. President's Malaria Initiative is the U.S. government's largest program to fight Malaria globally.”
“We're an inter-agency collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And largely, we are working with 30 partner countries around the globe to bring the ways in which we can prevent and treat Malaria to scale alongside the partner countries and their national Malaria control programs.”
Over the 19 years of its existence, the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative has grown and evolved with the complexity of Malaria and the mosquitoes that transmit Malaria, said Dr. Walton.
“There's a host of new developments when we think about the fight against Malaria. There's new medicines, there are new insecticides, both insecticides to be sprayed in people's homes, but also insecticides that are used on the bed nets to prevent Malaria. But I think the most exciting thing that we think about in terms of new developments is two, not one, but two new vaccines against Malaria. In terms of those vaccines, they have already been used to immunize over 2 million children in Malawi, Kenya and Ghana. And the success in terms of that rollout has been absolutely incredible.”
“The future of the fight against Malaria really is a complex one,” said Dr. Walton. “For us at the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative, the fight against Malaria, we feel, is fundamentally winnable. … We're at a crossroads. We're at a really sort of special time with a lot of opportunities and a lot of challenges. And our fundamental goal is to never let a child die of a mosquito bite. We feel that is eminently possible. We're excited to continue that effort.”
