Statement by U.S. Ambassador Susan E. Rice on World Malaria Day

Susan E. Rice
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations 
U.S. Mission to the United Nations 

Washington, DC

April 25, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Malaria kills an estimated 850,000 people every year with hundreds of millions infected annually. Tragically, most of the victims are children in Africa. In addition to the grim human toll, families are forced into poverty and already fragile public health systems suffer.

The United States is leading the campaign to end this scourge. Through the President’s Malaria Initiative and our contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, we have dramatically reduced malaria mortality worldwide. Earlier this year, the Obama Administration expanded the Initiative by $1.2 billion to cut malaria incidence in countries hardest hit by this disease, including Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

As part of our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, we aim to reduce preventable deaths from malaria to near zero by 2015, and ultimately achieve the goal of eliminating the disease entirely.

Through our support for Roll Back Malaria, an initiative spearheaded by UNICEF, we are working with public and private partners to beat this disease.

We still face critical gaps in preventing exposure to malaria among children and pregnant women, anti-malaria treatment, and public health systems to control malaria in a long-term, sustainable way.

On the occasion of World Malaria Day, let us redouble our efforts to lifesaving prevention and recommit ourselves to eradicating the disease for good.

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