Ghana to get $1.7m to fight Malaria

Accra, Sept. 3, GNA - Ms Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), on Wednesday announced an additional 1.7 million dollars for the fight against Malaria in Ghana. She said the money would be used to provide insecticide treated bed-nets for children less than five years, adding that malaria was the leading cause of death for under-five mortality.

"Thousands of children under the age of five die from malaria each year in Ghana," she said at a press conference when she met selected Ghanaian journalists to discuss the activities of UNICEF and how the media could promote children issues.

Ms Veneman co-chaired the opening of the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.

She said: "In Africa Malaria is the number one killer of children under age five, it is unacceptable that this preventable disease still claims the lives of so many.

She expressed worry about statistics in Ghana which showed that more bed-nets have been distributed but the number of children under age five who sleep under bed-nets was not up to the number of bed-nets distributed.

The insecticide treated nets, she said, had proved to be an effective way of preventing about 80 percent of malaria cases in Africa since these nets do not only prevent biting but also kill the mosquitoes.

Ms Veneman said UNICEF was concerned with other issues that affected the survival, growth and development of children including Child abuse, child trafficking, child health, maternal mortality, usage of iodine salt, children's access to education, clean water and sanitation and the protection of children from violence, exploitation and AIDS.

She noted that the lack of iodine in children's diet reduced the child's intelligence quiescence by 13 points and said the impact of that were the child's inability to learn and subsequently its inability to earn a living as an adult. She however said Ghana had been pro-active in the fight against malaria.

Commenting on aid effectiveness, Ms Veneman said there was progress in implementing the Paris Declaration which aimed at enhancing assistance to developing countries like Ghana, but admitted that progress was slow. "On the whole progress has been made with aid, aid is getting results," she said and stressed the need for coordination among donors. 3 Sept. 08