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 The Gateses aim to eradicate malaria by 2040 by doubling funding
over the next decade to support the roll out of new products to
tackle rising drug resistance to the disease.
Their goal of permanently ending transmission of the disease between
humans and mosquitoes is more ambitious than the Sustainable
Development Goal of ending epidemic levels of malaria by 2030.
They are also supporting a push to create the world's first vaccine
against a parasite.
Here are four of their arguments for pouring money into the issue:
* It promises almost a 20-fold return on investment: Eradication
could save 11 million lives and unlock $2 trillion in economic
benefits by 2040 from a healthy, more productive workforce and
health systems that are less burdened by the disease, Gates and the
United Nations say.
They estimate eradication would cost a fraction of this -- $90
billion to $120 billion, making it one of the "best buys" in global
development.
* It's the only way to deal with drug-resistance: If malaria is not
eliminated from drug resistant "hot spots" in Cambodia, Laos,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, multi-drug resistant malaria is
likely to spread worldwide, increasing the cost and reducing the
efficacy of malaria control programs everywhere.
Donors have set a goal of eliminating malaria in this Greater Mekong
region by 2020.
Tanzania's health ministry's acting permanent secretary, Nkundwe
Mwakyusa, said the emergence and spread of resistance to artemisinin,
the most commonly used drug against malaria, in Asia was "a major
concern".
In parts of Tanzania, mosquitoes can survive up to 20 times the
normal dose of permethrin, the insecticide used in nets, according
to Sophie Weston, a researcher with the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine.
* More children in school, less in hospital: Trials of the Mosquirix
vaccine showed that young children in countries like Kenya fall sick
with malaria up to five times in one year.
Malaria is one of the main reasons why Africans miss school or work,
entrenching poverty as time and money are spent in hospital, rather
than learning or earning.
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More than half of the deaths of children under five in Tanzanian
health facilities are due to malaria, according to the United
States' President's Malaria Initiative (PMI).
Malaria in pregnancy also causes about a quarter of all underweight
births in Africa, according to campaign group Malaria No More.
This translates to about 100,000 neonatal deaths a year, and
underweight children tend to suffer poor health.
"There's so much talk about zika and the terrifying effects during
pregnancy but just in sheer scale, malaria outstrips it many times
over," said Martin Edlund, chief executive of Malaria No More.
* It frees up money for "the next epidemic": Malaria is no longer
the leading cause of death among children under five in Africa,
having been overtaken by acute respiratory infections, according to
PMI.
It still accounts for a third of outpatient visits on mainland
Tanzania, 7.3 million cases a year, it says.
"The next step is ... to focus also on non-communicable diseases,"
said Mohamed Alwani, medical director of Ithani-Asheri Hospital in
the Tanzanian town of Arusha, referring to heart disease, diabetes
and cancer.
"The way I can see it for the last five years or so now, it's going
to be the next epidemic."
The International Center for Journalists and Malaria No More
provided a travel grant for this report
(Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit
the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson
Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking,
property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to
see more stories.)
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