9 April 2008
The Prime Minister was spoken out about malaria in his article for the Sun newspaper.
Read the article
Every 30 seconds in the world, a child dies from malaria.
By this time next year, at least one million people will have died needlessly - mostly young children and women.
A disease that has been eradicated in Britain and in most of the Western world continues to thrive in Africa and in other developing countries.
And what’s most shocking about this death toll is that it could be so easily prevented.
Just by sleeping under a bed net, every child could be protected from the bite of the malaria-spreading mosquito.
Where bed nets have been made widely available, the effect on the disease is there for all to see.
In Rwanda, the mass distribution of free bed nets - together with improved availability of anti-malarial drugs - reduced the number of children dying of malaria by 66 per cent.
In Ethiopia, the mass bed net programme reduced child deaths by more than a half.
And when enough families in a community or a country sleep under a bed net, the number of mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite falls.
That is how we can eventually eradicate the disease entirely.
But even though the bed nets are cheap, costing around five pounds a piece, millions of families cannot afford them.
The world needs another 120 million nets so that every child and every family throughout the world can sleep safely.
Every year we wait, another million more people will die.
We must take action now.
So I want 2008 to be the beginning of the end for this killer disease.
Britain has always been in the vanguard of tackling malaria.
We have led past efforts to increase the number of bed nets, and Sun readers donated generously to that effort, saving thousands of children’s lives around the world.
But we know we must do more.
I am proud to say that Britain is once again taking the lead - with the support of Sun readers - by supplying the funds for 20 million more bed nets.
That’s one in six of the 120 million bed nets the world needs.
And I’m challenging the rest of the world - governments, business and anyone else who wants to end this killer disease - to join us in this effort by donating money for nets.
By the time that world leaders meet at the United Nations in New York in September, we can - and should - have commitments to supply all 120 million of the nets we need.
And by tackling this killer disease, we can help to end the cycle of poverty in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.
Helping Africa out of poverty will benefit Britain too - becoming a continent that trades with Britain and can join us in tackling the international problems such as the fight against terror and climate change.
Every mother in the world wants to know that their child is safe when they put them to bed at night, whether they live in Britain or in Africa.
Through our campaign to tackle the scourge of malaria, and get bed nets to everyone who needs them, we can help all those children to sleep safe at night, and save millions of lives.
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