MEDIA RELEASE:
30 April 2020
Global progress on malaria elimination has stalled. Malaria continues to inflict unnecessary human and economic losses, mostly in developing countries. Pregnant women and children under five years are disproportionately affected by malaria.
Within this context, The Global Fund and Rotary Australia Word Community Service Ltd-Rotarians Against Malaria (RAWCS-RAM) have formed a strategic partnership to accelerate malaria elimination and end the unnecessary heavy toll on humanity.
This partnership will build upon a fundraising campaign aiming to raise US$12 million over a five-year period to increase funding of malaria elimination programs in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, and to prevent the re-establishment of the disease in Timor Leste.
Funds raised by the campaign will go towards scaling up critical malaria elimination activities including procurement and delivery of long-lasting insecticidal nets (“LLINs”), rapid diagnostic tests, treatments and care.
The positive impacts of increased funding will be greatly felt by the poorer communities and most at-risk populations of pregnant women and children under five years. In the longer term, ending malaria will bring improved health and economic productivity to the populace. Fundamentally, underpinned by TGF and Rotarians’ humanitarian service to ‘save lives’, we must eliminate malaria and bring health equity to these countries.
The campaign Manager, PDG Dai Mason (RAWCS-RAM) said: “This is a very exciting campaign that will boost the efforts in the Oceania region to eliminate malaria. Working with the Global Fund to step up the fight is a privilege and an opportunity not to be missed. There is hard work ahead of us to achieve our goals, but this makes it all the more worthwhile to know that we will change the lives of many people living in those countries.”
Francoise Vanni, Director, External Relations, the Global Fund : “We applaud RAWCS-RAM’s strong commitment to stepping up the fight against malaria, and we are honored to build this long-term partnership together. Malaria continues to be a significant burden on communities living in the Oceania region, but by accelerating prevention and access to treatment we will get closer to eradicating it. Building upon the powerful reach of RAWCS-RAM across the Asia Pacific region we will work together to engage new partners from the private sector and Rotary networks, to keep communities safe from malaria.”
For further information please go to https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/private-ngo-partners/resource-mobilization/rotary/.
