News Releases

Global Fund Hails New Malaria Investment

25 January 2016

GENEVA - The Global Fund welcomes a significant new investment against malaria by the United Kingdom and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Announced today in Liverpool by George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the funding of £3 billion over the next five years will support research and other efforts to eliminate malaria.

The new fund will accelerate gains made against the mosquito-borne disease. Global efforts have already achieved a 60 percent decline in deaths since 2000, when malaria killed one million people, mostly young children. Yet today's announcement underscored the need to expand efforts to eliminate this preventable disease.

The fund will receive £500 million a year from Britain's overseas aid budget for the next five years, as well as US$200 million a year from the Gates Foundation to support research and development and accelerate malaria elimination efforts.

Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund, commended the United Kingdom and the Gates Foundation for their tremendous leadership and commitment to end one of history's greatest killers.

"With tremendous efforts like these, we can build on collective progress and end this disease for good," Dr. Dybul said. "Every child who stays alive, every stillbirth prevented, and every pregnant woman who is protected as a result of this investment represents new hope and expanded opportunity for families and communities."

Osborne and Gates said in a statement that investments to prevent and treat diseases such as malaria have a great knock-on effect on countries' economies.

"In the poorest places, malaria is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. It costs Africa billions of pounds a year in lost productivity and can account for 40 percent of public health expenditure," Osborne and Gates said. "We both believe that a malaria-free world has to be one of the highest global health priorities."