His Excellency, President Jakaya Kikwete, penned an op-ed on malaria in The Guardian today.  Coming out of the African Union Summit, President Kikwete focused on what Africa can do in the fight against malaria.  Read the article below.

During the African Union summit this week, leaders met at a watershed moment in the quest to eliminate malaria across the continent.

Successes in malaria control have been substantial. Mosquito-net coverage in 20 African countries is at least five times higher today than in 2000, leading to significantly fewer cases of disease and death.

Today, at least 10 countries in Africa are reporting significant decreases in malaria cases and declines in malaria deaths of up to 80%. But challenges remain.

African countries and global development partners can either capitalise on the successes of the past few years or slide backwards. To save lives, more must be done, more quickly, and the current momentum to expand malaria prevention and treatment must be sustained.

The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (Alma) of 30 African countries, which I chair, met this week. Malaria is already a global health priority enshrined in the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But Alma has set goals far higher than the malaria MDG to “halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria”.

We have two primary strategic goals: achieve universal mosquito-net coverage by the end of this year; and eliminate preventable malaria deaths by 2015 by scaling up coverage of all other available interventions (including access to rapid diagnostic tests, treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), intermittent preventive treatment, and indoor residual spraying).

These are audacious goals. But with more than 680,000 African children dying each year from malaria, audacity is a moral imperative.

With the right resources, success is achievable. In Rwanda, for example, large-scale mosquito-net distribution and increased availability of ACT has resulted in a 40% reduction in childhood malaria deaths between 2001 and 2008.

On the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, the combination of high mosquito-net coverage, ACT availability, and indoor residual spraying reduced malaria deaths by over 90%. More importantly, under-five deaths from all causes fell by almost three-fifths.

Malaria control is vital to achieving the health-related MDGs. As a major killer of children, and a major cause of morbidity among pregnant women, success against malaria directly impacts MDG goal four (child mortality) and five (maternal health).

The indirect benefits are equally important. As the availability of malaria prevention and treatment has expanded, childhood deaths not just from malaria have also fallen dramatically, as resources are directed to other causes.

As chair of Alma, I would like to acknowledge the UK’s commitment to malaria. The UK government has recently committed significant funds and it has made future pledges for malaria to remain a priority. It is essential now that funding is spent in the best possible way.

We also note the tremendous contribution of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and the World Bank in helping to finance malaria control in Africa.

Alma calls for the full replenishment of both the Global Fund and the International Development Association of the World Bank. We ask all European donors to support the replenishment process.

African heads of state must continue to take the lead, as they have this past year. Among the measures Alma commits to supporting are: universal access to ACTs to prevent drug resistance; removal of taxes and tariffs on essential anti-malaria products; increased local production in Africa of high-quality, safe and effective anti-malaria interventions; scaling up of proven malaria interventions including indoor residual spraying and long-lasting insecticide-treated nets.

We are continuing our fight to make Africa a malaria-free continent. As Alma, Africa’s heads of state envision a future in which no African child dies a preventable death from malaria. Whether that future is near or distant depends on the joint efforts of Africa’s leaders and our national and global partners. We must make a final push for universal coverage against malaria.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, President Jakaya Kikwete and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda authored an opinion piece on ending taxes and tariffs on approved malaria interventions.  The entire text is below.

This month Uganda has the honor of hosting the annual meeting of the African Union, which brings together more than 40 heads of state to discuss issues of critical importance to our continent. More than ever before, Africa needs strategic leadership, vision and courage to address the challenges we face. We must harness Africa’s enormous potential, opportunities, and resources for the development, prosperity and well-being of its people.

One of the greatest challenges we face is malaria. And in this area, strategic leadership in part means getting government obstructions out of the way.

Malaria causes illness and productivity loss for close to 200 million people in Africa annually. The scourge claims the lives of more than 800,000 Africans each year, most of whom are babies and mothers.

Over the past decade, an unprecedented effort has been launched to defeat malaria, supported by funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; the World Bank; key bilateral partners, and other private sources around the world. Thanks to this funding, a huge volume of rapid diagnostic tests, life-saving medicines, and nearly 350 million mosquito nets will be delivered to Africa by the end of 2010. Other efforts, such as spraying households with insecticides, are being scaled up as part of a comprehensive attack on the disease.

 African governments are also stepping up the fight against malaria. The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), representing 28 heads of state, recently established a regional effort to facilitate cost-effective bulk procurement of mosquito nets, working together and with UNICEF. This approach will allow the accelerated delivery of nets to the countries that need them most.

We must now commit to overcoming barriers to malaria control and treatment, and a key area here is tax and tariff removal. Most anti-malaria commodities are currently produced outside of Africa, and when the ships that transport nets, medicines, and other essential health products arrive in African ports, their cargoes are often subjected to taxes and tariffs that absorb precious funds, reducing the volume of health goods that can be purchased, and creating inordinate delays in distribution.

The problem with imposing taxes and tariffs on essential anti-malaria commodities is that they hurt our poorest citizens, who cannot afford to purchase nets and medicines in the private sector, and must rely on public distribution. Essentially, imposing taxes and tariffs on malaria drugs and commodities taxes Africa’ s already fragile health system and makes malaria prevention and treatment less available to the poor. Evidence from our countries—Uganda and Tanzania—strongly suggests that removing taxes and tariffs strengthens the fight against malaria and benefits the poor the most. Several years ago, when we removed taxes and tariffs on all anti-malaria commodities, the cost of mosquito nets sold in local markets decreased, local demand for nets increased, and more small businesses entered the market to produce and supply these essential commodities. Since then, our countries have increased access to anti-malaria commodities and have become significant manufacturers of insecticide-treated nets that are exported to other African countries. Tax and tariff removal can, therefore, be good for Africa’s people and good for African entrepreneurs.

Careful attention must be given to the way in which taxes and tariffs are removed, however. Some countries have opted to grant waivers or exemptions for donated goods, but the reality is that obtaining these waivers can be time-consuming and expensive. In some countries, legislation requires that exemptions be renewed every year, and this process can cause months of delay. Removing taxes and tariffs altogether is by far the most equitable and effective solution.

Along with tax and tariff removal, malaria-endemic countries must pay attention to improving customs procedures so that public-health commodities are correctly identified when they arrive at ports. This is important not only to ease the flow of goods into countries, but also to maintain important quality standards as we battle the global problem of counterfeiting and sub-standard products that can lead to drug resistance. If African countries are to achieve universal access to critical health-care commodities and meet the goal of reducing malaria-related deaths to near zero by 2015, we need to take definitive steps now. Tax and tariff removal is one of the steps that we should take, and doing so will help African leaders demonstrate the depth of their commitment to ending malaria.

The global fight against malaria over the past few years has redefined the standards and expectations that we apply to development assistance. We have set measurable targets that we are working hard to achieve, and we are seeing great reductions in malaria thanks to more strategic applications of funding and greater accountability for donor spending. Just as international donors have increased their commitments, it is time for African leaders to intensify theirs by removing costly and counterproductive obstacles to effective malaria control. Through effective partnership, we can give Africa’s children a malaria-free future.

Mr. Kikwete is the president of the United Republic of Tanzania and the current convener of ALMA; Mr. Museveni is the president of the Republic of Uganda and a member of ALMA.

On May 5th, The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) announced $100 million in new funding for malaria initiatives at the World Economic Forum.

From the release;

Some Members of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), a coalition of 26 heads of state dedicated to ending deaths from the disease, met today with their supporters alongside the World Economic Forum Africa meeting to mark important gains in the effort to scale-up access to malaria control interventions, and to applaud the announcement of important new financial commitments.

These commitments included an announcement by Admiral Tim Ziemer of the United States President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) on President Obama’s budget request of $680 million for malaria in 2011. Included in this figure is $100 million toward the purchase of life-saving malaria prevention and treatment measures in DRC and Nigeria, two countries that together bear almost half of the world’s malaria burden.

The new U.S. funding comes as ALMA finalizes a bulk purchase of Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets, (LLINs). This bulk purchase of 50 million nets by 12 African nations will reduce cost and streamline procurement and distribution, accelerating the rate at which nets will begin reaching at-risk populations.

ALMA is an alliance of African Heads of State working to end malaria-related deaths. This body was founded by African Heads of State to utilize their individual and collective power across country and regional borders to:

Keep malaria high on the political and policy agenda at global, national and local levels;

Provide a forum for high-level, collective advocacy to ensure an efficient global procurement system with an emphasis on funding, manufacturing and distribution;

Provide a forum to share best practices and to review progress and address challenges in meeting the malaria targets.

The African Leaders Malaria Alliance met yesterday in Ethiopia during a meeting of the African Union. From the UN News Centre:

“Dozens of African leaders met today in Ethiopia to tackle the challenges facing the continent in the effort to meet the United Nations target of ensuring universal access to malaria control measures by the end of this year.

Some 26 heads of State convened the first working session of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) during the annual African Union (AU) summit, which got under way yesterday in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

ALMA aims to defeat the disease, which accounts for over 25 per cent of all deaths of children under the age of five across Africa, affects over 50 million pregnant women and is responsible for 10 per cent of all maternal mortalities every year.

As much as 40 per cent of health-care spending in endemic countries goes on malaria, costing the continent around $12 billion a year, according to a press release issued by ALMA.

The 26-nation ALMA coalition said that in the past 12 months alone at least 90 million long-lasting, insecticidal mosquito nets were delivered in Africa, and overall 200 million such nets have been distributed to 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, where virtually all malaria deaths occur.”

For more click here.

The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) is scheduled to launch at the UN headquarters in New York. ALMA is an inter-governmental organization dedicated to ending malaria deaths. The purpose of ALMA is to provide a forum for high level, collective advocacy to ensure efficient procurement, distribution, and utilization of malaria control interventions.

      Rwandan president Paul Kagame, along with a host of other African nations is scheduled to attend. A statement released by ALMA reads “Africa’s leaders are joining together to defeat malaria because the disease represents one of the biggest health and economic challenges to Africa and as a major killer of children, malaria accounts for one quarter of all deaths of children under-five years in Africa.”

      A leading advocate of ALMA’s message is UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Malaria Ray Chambers. Chambers reiterates the importance of a cooperative effort in defeating the disease. The ALMA summit begins September 24, 2009.