The Fight to Defeat Malaria
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of U.S. leadership to end malaria globally, a movement driven by the President's Malaria Initiative and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. These benchmark programs have helped save the lives of seven million people from this devastating disease for nearly two decades. I am proud to represent the 8th District of Maryland, where many of the major life-saving scientific discoveries have occurred, notably at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the National Institutes of Health. As a leader in the fight to eliminate malaria, the U.S. has helped create and advance life-saving interventions like insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor residual spray, and rapid diagnostic tests throughout endemic regions including Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. Between 2000 and 2015, the U.S. and our global partners have driven down malaria death rates by 62 percent overall, and by 69 percent for children under five. Yet, despite this progress, more work remains: the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 445,000 deaths in 2016 caused by this preventable and treatable disease. In its World Malaria Report of 2017, the WHO highlighted the successes and shortcomings of the global community's efforts to combat this disease, which is still killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. While annual reports have noted steady declines in deaths and infections caused by malaria, progress has stalled due to insecticide and drug resistance, stagnant funding from global and domestic partners, and political instability. For the first time since 2000, when the global community first came together to end malaria, infection rates increased and death rates did not decline. This is the stark reality of the fight against malaria: when attention and funding shrink, the disease thrives and spreads. I urge my colleagues to join me in continuing our bipartisan commitment to defeating malaria, including full funding of the President's Malaria Initiative and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Together, we can ensure that a day will arrive when no child will ever again die from a mosquito bite.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source