Today, every 30 seconds, a child in Africa will die from malaria.
This year, 1.2 million people will lose their lives to malaria.
This week, America is stepping up to do even more to help fight back.

On Thursday, America expanded its life-saving efforts to help fight malaria through the President’s Malaria Initiative, a $1.2 billion, five-year initiative to help fight malaria in Africa. Announced in 2005, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Senegal will now join Tanzania, Uganda and Angola as part of this initiative, and in 2007, the U.S. will add another eight countries.

America took another big step Thursday with the appointment of the first-ever U.S. Malaria Coordinator, Admiral R. Timothy Ziemer. This new position brings increased U.S. focus on the fight against malaria in Africa and the world’s poorest countries, making it Admiral Ziemer’s full-time job to help guide those life-saving efforts.

Bottom line, Thursday’s announcements mean that more people in poor countries will have access to the tools they need to help fight and beat malaria. With AIDS and TB, malaria is one of the biggest killers in the world’s poorest countries, especially for young children and pregnant mothers. A mosquito bite can mean life or death. The medicines needed to treat it can be found at any American neighborhood pharmacy but aren’t available to most Africans.

What’s even more striking than the number of lives lost from malaria is that it’s completely preventable and treatable. The good news is that effective solutions like bednets and medicines only cost dollars. When ONE recently visited Tanzania, we saw how just one bednet, as a cost of just $7, protected a mother and her children from malaria for up to five years. These kinds life-saving interventions are a bargain, and an example where we see so clearly how America’s investments are money well spent.

When ONE spoke with Mr. Ziemer, he expressed his commitment to the fight against global disease and poverty, saying about ONE that “the movement has caught on” and how to engage Americans in the fight against extreme poverty is “the question of the day”. While the President puts forward effective solutions such as his Emergency AIDS Plan and Malaria Initiative and Congress must then do its work to fund them, “ONE has a key role in clarifying the news, about what’s happening outside of Sioux City, Iowa and getting the word out.”

Ziemer said he was looking forward to getting to work, ready to focus on “accomplishing an ambitious program, one that’s all about saving lives in the countries that are hardest hit.” “Right now, we should be encouraged,” said Mr. Ziemer. “There are significant needs in these countries, but also opportunities for stabilizing and giving people hope.”

The President’ Malaria Initiative works in many countries with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, joining together in Angola this month to distribute bednets. Ziemer pointed to the successes of these joint efforts with the Global Fund: “It’s clear to me there’s a consensus on the goal. What I see and what we must do is continue to cooperate.” Ziemer’s staff seconded this, saying that “The Global Fund grants in a any given country are absolutely essential…it’s a good deal for the U.S., every dollar in is three out”, explaining how every dollar of America’s funding for the Global Fund must be matched by other countries 2-to-1.

At last year’s 2005 G8 summit, America and the world’s richest countries made an historic and ambitious promise to protect 85% of vulnerable Africans against malaria. Ziemer expressed support for the target, saying that G8 leaders are right to use their influence to further the fight against global disease and that “ambitious goals are good, let’s set our targets really high or else we’re going nowhere.”

You can read more about how the President’s Malaria Initiative and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria are helping save and change lives in Africa and the world’s poorest countries.