A new campaign against malaria was announced Friday in Norway by international health agency and European governments.

 

The program will have an initial budget of $225 million and will be run by a new partnership under the name the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria.

It is a joint effort by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Back Malaria Partnership, the governments of Norway, Britain and the Netherlands and the UNIAID partnership of 30 countries raising money through airline ticket fees.

 

Malaria kills nearly a million people a year and sickens 250 million others for more than 70 years, according to the World Health Organization. Most at risk are children in sub-Saharan Africa. The parasite causing malaria gets inside the body causing fever and sometimes deadly brain infections.

 

Under the program, the international donations will be used to negotiate price cuts for the combinations of drugs needed to beat the resistance built up by the malaria parasite. New drugs are known as artemisinin combination therapies, or ACTs. They are available for free in public health clinics, but because they are up to 40 times more expensive over the counter, many malaria sufferers opt for cheaper, older medicines that the malaria parasite has, over time, grown resistant to.

 

“The age when the world had effective drugs against infectious diseases but let millions die each year because they couldn't afford them is over,” said Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in a statement.