A growing awareness of malaria’s heavy toll has been matched with greater commitment to curtail it. Increased financial flows from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the World Bank’s Global Strategy and Booster Programme, the United States President’s Malaria Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, are expected to spur key malaria control interventions, particularly insecticide-treated net use and access to effective anti-malarial drugs.

In just four years (1999-2003), distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets increased 10-fold in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite this progress, urban dwellers are six times more likely to use the nets than their rural counterparts, according to data available from a number of countries in the region. Similarly, the richest fifth of the population are 11 times more likely to use them than the poorest fifth.