[Ip-health] Please sign our malaria control funding request letter

[Philip Coticelli]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Dear friends and colleagues,

Africa Fighting Malaria will shortly send the following letter to key
members of the US Congress, urging full funding of the President's Malaria
Initiative, the Global Fund and other malaria programs. These figures
include, among other interventions, the purchase and provision of
life-saving Artemisinin-based combination therapy drugs. If your
organization would like to be listed as a signatory, please email me as soon
as possible at pcoticelli@gmail.com.

With sincere thanks,
Philip Coticelli
Africa Fighting Malaria

The Honorable Robert C. Byrd
Chairman
Senate Committee on Appropriations
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Thad Cochran
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Appropriations
Washington, DC 20510

[Email format prevents me from posting this address alongside, as it appears
in the Word version of this letter]

Dear Chairman Byrd and Ranking Member Cochran:



We fully understand that you face significant challenges in finalizing the
FY 2007 appropriations process and setting budget priorities for the year
ahead.  Nonetheless, we hope very much that you will consider increased
funding for bilateral and multilateral malaria control programs as a
priority, and strongly encourage you to do so.



Malaria kills over a million people each year and hinders economic,
cognitive and social development.  It is the single biggest killer of
African children, yet more resources and attention are devoted to fighting
the disease now than ever before.  We urge you to support the Senate's
funding level of $234 million for bilateral malaria programs, which includes
$135 million for the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) in 2007.



In 2006, the PMI launched efforts in Angola, Tanzania and Uganda to
successfully scale up malaria control measures.  In Angola, an indoor
residual spraying program that began in December 2005 had provided
protection for 555,000 people by the end of March 2006.  In Uganda, the PMI
procured over 290,000 pediatric doses of Artemisinin-based combination
treatment drugs for free distribution as part of Uganda's home-based
management of fever program in the IDP camps in northern Uganda.  In
Tanzania, beginning in mid-December 2005, the PMI distributed 130,000 long
lasting bed-nets, more than doubling the coverage rates of pregnant women
and children on Zanzibar and Pemba Island.  The number of confirmed malaria
cases on Pemba Island dropped 87% from January to September in 2006 to 1,570
down from 12,531 over the same period last year, according to local health
reports.



In total, these activities protected an estimated 6 million people from
malaria.  With $135 million in FY2007, the PMI will be able to protect an
additional 30 million people in these three countries and four new ones:
Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Senegal.



President Bush and the First Lady recently hosted a White House Summit on
Malaria to galvanize public-private partnerships, grassroots and community
efforts for this initiative.  Various global public health leaders,
including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Dr. Margaret Chan, new head
of the World Health Organization, Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation,
Paul Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank, several African Health Ministers,
and numerous celebrities participated and committed their support to the
PMI.  A new network called Malaria No More was created specifically to build
on the momentum generated by this event and the PMI's success in 2006.



As a result, the U.S.' political commitment to fighting malaria is
tremendous and unprecedented.  It is critical at this stage that the
financial commitment is equally tremendous.  The PMI must receive the full
requested funding of $135 million for FY2007 to sustain and build upon these
efforts in the recipient countries.  Success will be measured by the extent
to which recipient countries can sustain the programs our resources and
expertise are helping to build.  This will not be possible without the
ongoing commitment of both the House and Senate to work on a bipartisan
basis to provide full funding for goals that are ambitious, but also vitally
important and wholly achievable.  Malaria is a preventable and curable
disease.



In addition to PMI, the USAID in conjunction with the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) requires $99 million to continue and expand
upon current malaria control measures.  This figure includes research and
development of new drugs, preventive tools and a vaccine, as well as
technical assistance to recipient countries and preparation activities in
eight countries that the President proposed to include in the PMI in 2008.



Further, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria is a critically
important partner to the US in efforts to control and eradicate malaria.  The
Global Fund currently provides about a third of all resources for malaria
control globally, and works side-by-side with the PMI, USAID and the CDC to
provide effective malaria control measures to recipient countries.  In all
your deliberations on FY2007 appropriations, we urge you to maintain the
Senate level of $600 million for the Global Fund.  Combined with an
additional $100 million in the Labor-HHS bill, the total U.S. contribution
to the Global Fund would be $700 million in FY 2007.



In sum, we hope that as you consider the final FY 2007 appropriations for
Foreign Operations, you will succeed in defending the Senate's funding level
of $234 million for bilateral malaria programs, including the PMI, and $700
million in total for the Global Fund.  Working together, the U.S. and the
Global Fund can help save countless lives of those most at risk from this
deadly, yet preventable, disease.



Sincerely,



Africa Fighting Malaria