Washington, D.C., June 21, 2018 - This week, the House of Representatives and Senate Committees on Appropriations approved their Fiscal Year 2019 (FY 2019) State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations bills, both of which included sustained funding for crucial U.S. global health programs, including the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. PMI and the Global Fund have been instrumental in saving nearly 7 million lives from malaria since 2000.
Both Appropriations Committees approved legislation providing $755 million for PMI and $1.35 billion for the Global Fund, continuing a legacy of bipartisan Congressional leadership in the global malaria fight. While these amounts represent flat funding from FY 2018, the approved levels are significant increases over President Trump’s FY 2019 budget request, which called for an $81 million cut to PMI and a $425 million cut to the Global Fund from FY 2018 funding levels.
“We are thankful to our champions in Congress who, despite a challenging environment, continue to provide critical funding for PMI and the Global Fund. These programs have not only saved millions of lives and prevented more than a billion cases of malaria, but also help maintain America’s longstanding leadership role in global health,” said Josh Blumenfeld, Malaria No More’s Managing Director, Global Policy and Advocacy. “We look forward to working with Members of the House and Senate Caucuses on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases and the many other Congressional malaria champions to ensure these allocations are maintained in the final FY 2019 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill.”
Despite tremendous progress over the last 15 years, malaria still infects more than 200 million people a year and kills a child every two minutes. The U.S. is the largest single donor to global anti-malaria efforts, with PMI operating in 27 high burden countries in Africa and the Greater Mekong Subregion in Asia.
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For more information or interview requests, contact Michal Fishman at +1 504-220-2792 or Michal.Fishman@MalariaNoMore.org
About Malaria No More
Malaria No More envisions a world where no one dies from a mosquito bite. More than a decade into our mission, our work has contributed to historic progress toward this goal. Now, we’re mobilizing the political commitment, funding, and innovation required to achieve what would be one of the greatest humanitarian accomplishments – ending malaria within our generation. For more information, visit www.malarianomore.org
