Cutting the budget of the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) by 44%, as the U.S. Congress has proposed, would lead to an estimated 67 million additional cases of malaria over the next four years, according to a mathematical model published this week in PLOS Medicine by Peter Winskill of Imperial College London, UK, and colleagues.
The PMI, established in 2005 and funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has provided ongoing support to malaria control programs in 19 African countries and is the largest bilateral funder of malaria prevention and treatment. In May 2017, Congress published a budget justification document which included a 44% proposed reduction to PMI funding for 2018. In the new study, the researchers inputted data on PMI funding and epidemiology into an established model of Plasmodium falciparum malaria to project the impact of reductions in funding.
If funding is maintained, PMI-funded interventions are estimated to avert 162 million more cases (95% CrI: 116 million, 194 million) of malaria and save 692,589 (95% CrI: 392,694, 955,653) lives between 2017 and 2020 compared to no PMI support. If a 44% reduction in funding occurs, the model revealed that this loss of direct aid could result in an additional 67 million (95% CrI: 49 million, 82 million) cases of malaria and 290,649 deaths (95% CrI: 167,208, 395,263) between 2017 and 2020 compared to maintaining current levels of funding.
"Our results provide a conservative estimate of the overall impact of PMI funding as we do not capture the impact of all PMI-associated activities," the authors say. "PMI's ongoing support... in counties of high burden or strategic importance is vital in order to avoid a rapid erosion of the progress made in the last 15 years on the road towards malaria eradication."
###
Research Article
Funding:
PW and ACG acknowledge research grant support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation URL: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ (OPP1068440). PGTW acknowledges funding from an MRC Population Health Scientist Fellowships (MR/LO12189/1). HCS acknowledges support from an Imperial College Junior Research Fellowship (F24101). PW, HCS, ACG, and PGTW acknowledge Centre support from the Medical Research Council (MRC) URL: https://www.mrc.ac.uk/ and the Department for International Development (DFID) URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development. JTG received no specific funding for this work.
Competing Interests:
PW discloses his consultancy services to the Global Fund to support investment case and allocation modelling and country planning support. ACG discloses financial consultancy services to the Global Fund to support investment case and allocation modelling and country planning support and unrestricted research grants from a range of funders, including BMGF, UK Medical Research Council, The Wellcome Trust, NIH, Malaria Vaccine Initiative, Medicines for Malaria Venture, Integrated Vector Control Consortium, and Gavi. She is also a member of WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Committee and of WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria Scientific Committee. HCS discloses her consultancy from the Global Fund for country support planning and modelling impact of national malaria elimination strategies.
Citation:
Winskill P, Slater HC, Griffin JT, Ghani AC, Walker PGT (2017) The US President's Malaria Initiative, Plasmodium falciparum transmission and mortality: A modelling study. PLoS Med 14(11): e1002448. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002448
Author Affiliations:
MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER:
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002448
Journal
PLoS Medicine