WHO Asks for $15M More to Fight Malaria
The World Health Organization (WHO) is requesting that $15 million be allocated to Cambodia from a new $100 million grant to stop the spread of resistance to the best available drugs currently used to fight malaria. Eva Christophel, the WHO’s regional malaria adviser in Manila, said that the organization hoped to hear back from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is allocating the money, next month. Global Fund’s $100 million has been allocated to Emergency Response to Artemisinin Resistance. Health workers first detected resistance to Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs) along the Thai-Cambodian border in 2007 and since then it has also been found in Vietnam and Burma. … Ms. Christophel said the $15 million requested for Cambodia, if approved, would go in part toward moving the WHO’s regional office for fighting ACT resistance from Bangkok to Phnom Penh, focusing more on anti-malaria treatment for migrant workers and stepping up the search for people who carry resistant malaria strains without showing any symptoms of the disease. … In November, the malaria center conceded that Global Fund grants would no longer be handed over directly to the CNM because of an investigation by the Fund that uncovered misspending of a previous grant. …
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/who-asks-for-15m-more-to-fight-malaria-46693/
