LONDON (AP) — Malaria could be wiped out by 2040, despite the lack of an effective vaccine, previous failed attempts to eradicate the disease and drug resistance problems, the United Nations and Microsoft founder Bill Gates said in a report released on Monday.
Gates and Ray Chambers, the U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy for malaria, said getting rid of the parasitic disease could ultimately save 11 million lives and provide $2 trillion in economic benefits. In a statement, Gates described eradication as “the only sustainable solution.” His foundation has been one of the major donors to malaria control programs.
The report calls for a doubling of the money spent on malaria by 2025 and new ways to control the mosquitoes that spread the disease.
Past attempts to get rid of malaria have failed; the World Health Organization and partners had targeted the end of 2015 for cutting cases to “near zero.” About 500,000 children are killed by malaria every year and it’s unknown whether cases are going up or down in the worst-hit countries.
Despite a regulatory approval recommendation for the world’s first malaria vaccine, the shot only protects about one third of children. Resistance to many malaria drugs has been detected and more than a third of people at risk have no protective bed nets.
Officials are also still struggling to wipe out guinea worm and polio — smallpox is the only disease to have been eradicated.
“It’s good to be ambitious in global health but this is another ambition that misses a crucial element of delivering on such goals: health systems,” said Sophie Harman, a public health expert at Queen Mary University in London. “Grand and glitzy eradication campaigns overlook the real necessity of financing everyday health systems.”
Harman also doubted whether the 2040 goal was realistic, citing the previously missed polio targets. WHO had originally hoped to get rid of polio by 2000.
“These dates seem increasingly arbitrary and gloss over all the previous dates we’ve heard before,” she said.
There is a cure for Malaria now and has been for a few years but no one is going to report it because it is too cheap and government can’t make money on it. The Red Cross has cured many but will not let it be known. Instead of curing people now and saving lives they want to invent some vaccine they can make billions with. All of these victims of malaria could be saved but for the greedy and powerful!
Hi Judy,
Would love to know what his treatment is. Babesia is a vector borne disease very similar to malaria that is rampant here in the USA. Not much is being done to detect and treat this disease. As a result, many are needlessly suffering and ultimately dying.
Thanks for your response.
Ruthie
Sounds like Jim Humble’s Chlorine Dioxide. He called Gates, who said he’s only interested in FDA-approved treatments. (Even outside U.S. jurisdiction?! Scratching head.) So success doesn’t matter to Gates?
FDA approval can come only after someone does expensive tests. No one will do such tests without a promise of future profit. Future profit can come only from patentable treatments. So the entire category of non-patentable treatments will never be FDA-approved. So if water, or fasting, or NaHCO3, or Vitamin C or B-17 or K-2, or DMSO, or nasal irrigation etc etc cures anything, it will never be FDA-approved.
ClO2 is approved in the U.S. for disinfecting food preparation surfaces without rinsing, and for disinfecting cruise ships, and I’ve seen it advertised for deodorizing rooms, and it’s approved in Malawi for malaria. But not in the U.S. So Africans will never get it from Bill Gates.
Thanks Bill, you’ve made the world a better place … sort of.