U.S. malaria aid saved 1.7 million children

Over the last decade, American donations to fight malaria in Africahave saved the lives of nearly 2 million children, according to a new analysis of mortality rates in 32 countries there.

The study, published by P LOS Medicine this month, looked at the long-term effects of the President’ s Malaria Initiative, a program started by President George W. Bush in 2005 that has spent over $500 million a year since2010.

The results de bunk one of the persistent myths of foreign aid: that it has no effect because more children survive each year anyway as economies improve.

The researchers—economists from the University of North Carolina and Harvard—looked at death rates for children under 5, contra sting the 19 countries that get U.S. malaria aid( mostly in the form of mosquito nets, house spraying and malaria pills) with 13 countries that do not.

They adjusted the data to filter out neonatal death sand lives saved by other medical interventions,such as childhood vaccines supplied by donors or HIV drugs paid for by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, or by the President’ s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was also initiated by Bush.

They found that countries helped by the malaria initiative had 16 percent fewer death sin that age group, which amounts to about 1.7 million lives of babies and toddlers saved since the program began, said Harsh a T hi rum ur thy, a health economist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the lead author.

The study was not commissionedor paid for by the malaria agency, T hi rum ur thy added.

“We thought it was essential to evaluate how PM I was working ,” he said, referring to the President’s Malaria Initiative .“We gave themaheads-upthatwewere doing the analysis, but we didn’ t share the results with them till theywereinprint.”

“I welcome this independentexternal analysis ,” said Rear Adm.R.TimothyZie mer, coordinator of the initiative from its inception until early this year .“PM I’ s effective approach demonstrates to all what can be accomplished in fighting malaria with U.S. leadership .”

In an accompanying editorial, E ran Ben david, a health-policy specialist at Stanford University, called the stud y’ s conclusions “striking.”

Health-related foreign aid, he noted, amount stoles st han a penny of every taxpayer dollar spent but pays dividends in two ways: Relatively small contributions save many lives, and countries that receive such aid have overwhelming ly favorable views of the United States. In the Pew Research Center’ s Global Attitudes& Trends surveys over the last 15 years, Ben david said inane mail ,75 percent or more of residents of Ghana, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Senegal usually said they regard the United States favorably.