Malaria funding has increased some 300% in the last three years. Between donor funding (~$1 billion), spending by endemic countries and their citizens (~$600 million), and R&D ($400 million), total spending amounts to just under $2 billion a year.

So how much do we need to meet the challenge of malaria?

A recent World Health Organization (WHO) study concluded that it would cost $1.7 billion to $2.2 billion per year over ten years to meet the 80% coverage targets in Africa. Worldwide the figure is $3.8 billion to $4.2 billion/year.

Yesterday at the Gates Malaria Forum, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) presented a somewhat different set of estimates: $7 billion per year worldwide.

This seemingly vast difference boils down to a few simple assumptions.

First, the BCG study includes a much bigger population than the WHO’s: 3.3 billion people as opposed to 1.9 billion. BCG covers 107 countries (vs. the to 80 for the WHO) and assumes much larger at-risk populations in countries like India, China, and Pakistan.

Second, the BCG study includes $600 million a year for R&D to develop new anti-malaria tools including, eventually, a vaccine. The WHO looks only at the expense of rapidly scaling up current tools.

Having said all that, the two agree as often as not, particularly when it comes to Africa. The BCG estimate for Africa is in the neighborhood of $2 billion to $3 billion per year, just like the WHO’s.

This is a very reasonable number for tackling malaria on the continent where 90% of the more than 1 million annual deaths from malaria occur. Now that’s something we can all agree on.

-Martin Edlund, Malaria No More

Tuesday to Thursday this week, Malaria No More’s Martin Edlund is live blogging on the ONE Blog from the Gates Foundation’s Malaria Forum in Seattle. Malaria No More’s mission is simple: no more deaths from malaria. Learn more and help prevent a million child deaths this year by donating a $10 bed net at www.MalariaNoMore.org.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Gates Crashing Live Blog, Malaria No More, Malaria. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.