White House Malaria Summit

December 14, 2006
Remarks by Melinda French Gates

Thank you for your kind introduction. And thank you to the First Lady for hosting this summit.

If the global partners fighting malaria had gotten together a decade ago, they could have fit in a broom closet. I would not have been here—malaria wasn’t something Bill and I even thought about. But in the past few years, many of you here have worked tirelessly to push this issue to the top of the global agenda.

The Nothing But Nets campaign, promoted by Sports Illustrated and sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, the Methodist Church, and the NBA, will continue to get sports fans engaged in the fight against malaria. Exxon and other companies are here, demonstrating the crucial role that business will play. Malaria No More is a brand new group, and I hope it will inspire millions of Americans to join the cause.

The President’s Malaria Initiative has pledged more than $1 billion to fight the disease. This is an enormous step forward, and it joins ongoing efforts by the WHO, Roll Back Malaria, the Global Fund, the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, and many other groups to help conquer malaria.

If we all work together, we will succeed. We already have the tools. We know that bed nets and insecticides protect people from malaria, and we know that treating people who are sick can save their lives.

Now we need to deliver the nets and the insecticides to people at risk of getting the disease, and treat those who are already ill.

We also need to keep pushing research into better treatments and insecticides, and—one day—a vaccine. And when we have a malaria vaccine, we must ensure that every vulnerable child gets it.

I am confident that we will deliver the tools we have and develop the tools we need because people in wealthy countries are starting to recognize the urgency of the problem. Until recently, many Americans probably didn’t know malaria still existed. But creative efforts like Rick Reilly’s columns in Sports Illustrated have helped spread the word.

Now that we know, we’re going after malaria. We’re doing it because we’re a compassionate people, but we also expect results. The bottom line here is saving lives, and it can be done.

Bill and I have seen first hand what success looks like.

A few years ago, we traveled to a hospital in Mozambique, where we met a young girl who was sick with malaria, shivering with fever, and on the verge of death. I remember looking down in her crib and thinking that if this were an American child, she wouldn’t be suffering. Her mother sat nearby, gently stroking her daughter’s head, fearing that she was about to lose her second child to malaria.

But today, the girl we met is alive and healthy. A great miracle happened to this beautiful child. She received the drugs she needed to clear the parasite from her body. Governments, businesses, foundations, and nonprofit groups are now working together to see that this miracle is repeated millions of times, until it’s not a miracle anymore. Until it’s routine.

That is the idea behind an anti-malaria partnership in Zambia known as MACEPA, which our foundation supports. The government of Zambia has joined with nonprofit groups and funders to scale up malaria prevention and treatment throughout the country. Earlier this year, I visited Zambia and met health workers in the town of Kafue. They told me that every family there had lost at least one person to malaria. Yet the village didn’t have enough bed nets to go around.

Imagine being a pregnant woman, knowing how vulnerable you and your unborn baby are to malaria, and yet having no way to protect yourself. Imagine being the health worker who must choose which family gets a net and which family gets nothing. Imagine being the parent who must choose which of their children will sleep under the net each night. Nobody should have to make those decisions, and in Zambia, they won’t have to anymore. Last year, as part of this new program, the government of Zambia distributed more than half a million bed nets, and Zambia is making dramatic progress toward its goal of a net for every person who needs one.
 
To build on this accomplishment, our foundation announced a $29 million grant on Monday to expand the MACEPA program to five additional counties. We also announced new grants to accelerate research on malaria drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests, and to support the Roll Back Malaria partnership.

The unprecedented attention, resources, and new science have put us in a position to win this fight. However, we have to do more. We need to close the gap in funding, and we need to accelerate the science.

Most of all, we need to work together and commit to a coordinated global strategy. This strategy would take into account the lessons we’ve learned so far. It would tap into our individual strengths and make sure our work doesn’t overlap so that together, we can help developing countries win this fight by making the most of our collective resources. I hope that we can all make that pledge today.

Wiping out malaria would join the eradication of small pox as one of the greatest achievements in human history. It is a goal we can achieve in our lifetimes. And Bill and I are committed to working alongside all the partners in this effort, until Malaria is No More.