The funding will support a new Global Malaria Action Plan to wipe out the disease in Africa by 2015. The plan will emphasize the introduction of a vaccine against the deadly disease, and provide better access to bed nets, indoor spraying, improved diagnosis and treatment and preventative measures for pregnant women.
The malaria vaccine, which has now entered the final stage of trials, will still save thousands of lives. Researchers hope it will be able to give total immunity to all babies in affected countries soon after birth.
At the United Nations 2008 Millennium Development Goals Malaria Summit in New York on Thursday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Bill Gates and Gordon Brown and other leaders hope the money will be enough to eradicate malaria by that time.
The money includes $1.1 billion from the World Bank and $1.6 billion from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $168.7 million to research a new generation of malaria vaccines.
Malaria can be found in many regions of the world, but 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. A child dies every 30 seconds from this preventable disease.
