By Martha Moss - 14th April 2011
It is incumbent on us to look at how we can incentivise the private sector to engage
Timothy Ziemer, the coordinator of the US president's malaria initiative
The international community must stay focused and invest in building partnerships with the private sector if it is to reduce malaria rates in the developing world, a conference on the disease has heard.
Speaking at the Oslo malaria conference, Timothy Ziemer, the coordinator of the US president's malaria initiative, said his government recognises that "partnership is key" in meeting the target of reaching near-zero malaria deaths by 2015.
He told participants - including policymakers, academics and health experts - that it was important to involve new partners "that should be in the mix but today are not" in tackling malaria.
"Private sector engagement helped make the roll back malaria partnership more relevant as a protection mechanism," he said.
However, he acknowledged the need to look at innovative ways of engaging with the private sector, because investment in fighting malaria does not produce much profit.
"It is incumbent on us to look at how we can incentivise the private sector to engage," he said.
While Ziemer commended the "remarkable" progress made in the past five years, he warned that "we have to go forward with a heavy dose of reality because there will be less money and there is unrest around the world".
Robert Newman, the director of the World Health Organisation's global malaria programme agreed that the global financial crisis and competing priorities made for "challenging times".
The economic conditions made it more important than ever to "do a better job of documenting return on investment", he argued.
He told participants that it was "totally morally unacceptable" that 781,000 people still die every year as result of malaria, a preventable and treatable disease.
"We have become somewhat immune to that figure but it's disgusting and it needs to change," he said.
Newman welcomed "encouraging" figures showing that almost three quarters of a million lives had been saved over the past 10 years, but estimated that approximately €4bn per year was needed to maintain the momentum.
Warning that "insufficient, unstable and unpredictable" funding threatened to reverse progress, he said, "It is far too soon to declare victory against malaria. We are not there yet."
