Lusaka, Zambia – Minister of Health, Honorable Angela Cifire, and U.S. Ambassador to Zambia, Her Excellency Carmen Martinez, on Friday, December 15 announced that Zambia has been selected as a focus country under U.S. President Bush’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). The initiative, announced in 2005, is a five-year, $1.2 billion commitment from the U.S. government that aims to cut malaria-related deaths by 50 percent in 15 focus countries in Africa. Zambia now joins Tanzania, Angola, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal and seven other newly selected countries.

The announcement of Zambia’s selection was made at the White House Summit on Malaria held in Washington yesterday. International experts, multilateral institutions, corporations and foundations, African civic leaders, NGOs and faith-based and service organizations, corporations and foundations discussed and highlighted measures for controlling malaria. It also explored ways that the public and private sector can work effectively together to save lives and better educate the general public about malaria prevention and treatment.

Although malaria is a largely preventable disease, it kills 3,000 children every day and claims almost a million lives a year in Africa. In Zambia, malaria accounts for nearly 4.3 million clinical cases and an estimated 50,000 deaths per year. While malaria once afflicted many Americans, the challenge now is to ensure that medical and scientific breakthroughs benefit people still at-risk of malaria in Africa and around the world.

“Providing support to the Zambian government’s National Malaria Strategic Plan to control malaria is a top priority for the U.S. Government” said Ambassador Martinez. Zambia has already benefited from the PMI. In October this year, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Global Health, Dr. Kent Hill, presented insecticides worth $853,000 to the Ministry of Health National Malaria Control Center to support the 2006 Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) program. The program is covering 15 districts, including Lusaka, and will protect 4.5 million Zambians against malaria.

The U.S. government, through USAID, is also procuring Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets distributed through antenatal clinics and is assisting the Ministry of Health to strengthen diagnosis and treatment of malaria, and to reduce the burden of malaria during pregnancy.

For more information on the PMI, please visit: www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/malaria
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