U.K. Should Do More To Demonstrate Cost-Effectiveness Of Malaria Interventions, Report Says

“The U.K. has funded 25 million mosquito nets since 2010, but the National Audit Office [NAO] said usage among target groups, such as children, was disappointing,” BBC News reports. “The U.K. spent £252 million [$384 million] in 2011-12 on counter-prevention measures in 18 countries, 16 of them in Africa,” the news service writes, noting the NAO “said the countries had been ‘well-chosen’ but questioned the effectiveness of some of the spending” (7/2). “While [the Department for International Development’s (DfID)] programs use proven interventions such as bednets, which compare favorably with global benchmarks for cost-effectiveness, the department has further to go to demonstrate that it has fully secured value for money, [the NAO] said,” according to The Guardian. “In its report, the NAO said DfID needs to leverage more developing country resources while obtaining the best value from its own bilateral programs and from the support it channels through multilateral organizations,” the newspaper writes, adding, “The U.K. needs to do more to encourage poor countries to strengthen their own health systems so that aid for malaria has a more lasting impact, [the] government watchdog said” (Tran, 7/2). “Mortality rates from malaria in Africa have dropped by a third in the past decade but the NAO warned this progress was at risk of stalling and there could be ‘a rapid resurgence of the disease,'” according to BBC (7/2). “Despite recent progress, malaria infects about 219 million people each year, killing an estimated 655,000,” The Guardian notes (7/2).

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