I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Development Report.
A year ago, the World Bank announced a new program to control malaria in
Africa and Southeast Asia. It launched the Global Strategy and Booster
Program in April of 2005 on Africa Malaria Day.
The five-year plan calls for expanded use of medicines and
preventions like bed nets treated with insect poisons. Public health experts
say mosquitoes spread as many as 500 million cases of malaria each year.
Now, thirteen of those experts in North America, Africa and Europe have
criticized the World Bank for its history on the disease. Their criticism
appeared in the medical publication the Lancet.
They accuse the World Bank of wasting money on ineffective medicines. They
say claims of "success stories" in India and Brazil are wrong. And they accuse
the bank of false claims about increased spending in Africa in the past five
years.
Amir Attaran at the University of Ottawa in Canada and the other experts call
on the World Bank to close down its malaria projects. They say the bank should
instead finance groups that are better able to save lives quickly.
The Lancet published a reaction from World Bank officials, led by Jean-Louis
Sarbib. The officials call the financial reporting accusations untrue. And they
use evidence from India to dispute the accusations about treatments.
They say the bank is basing drug treatment policies on differences in the
disease within the country. They say a one-size-fits-all policy would not work
there.
The statement says malaria control efforts have been successful in parts of
Brazil, Eritrea, India and Vietnam. But it also says that the bank's overall
efforts in the past did not have enough money or people. The officials say the
bank has learned from the past years. They call the new plan "results-driven."
Malaria kills more than one million people each year, mostly young children
in Africa. The Abuja declaration of 2000 calls for a fifty percent cut in
malaria deaths in Africa by 2010. A Lancet editorial says that if the World Bank
is serious about being judged on results, then this is a chance for
cost-effective action.
In economic terms, the disease costs an estimated 12,000 million
dollars a year of lost productivity in Africa alone.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. Read
and listen to our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
