Call for an end to malaria deaths
Ban Ki-moon describes the toll taken by malaria as 'unacceptable'
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to launch a new campaign to eliminate deaths from malaria, to mark the first World Malaria Day.
The disease causes over a million deaths a year, with 90% of all cases occurring in Africa.
Mr Ban wants all of Africa to have access to basic measures to control the disease by the end of 2010.
"We need desperately to step up our efforts to roll back malaria", he says in a statement.
More than half a billion people are infected with malaria each year.
Despite this, it is preventable and treatable.
See map of affected areas
Bed nets
In a video message for a UN World Malaria Day event, the Secretary-General announces an initiative offering household sprays and bed nets treated with insecticide "to all people at risk, especially women and children in Africa" by the end of 2010.
He called for bed nets for an extra 500 million people, more malaria clinics and preventative treatment centres, more training for community health workers, and encouragement of research into the disease.
Mr Ban describes this as a "bold but achievable vision", saying that several African countries "have made dramatic strides in malaria control".
Malaria still kills more than one million people every year... The toll it is taking is unacceptable - all the more so because malaria is preventable and treatable
Ban Ki-moonUN Secretary-General
War fever: Malaria in conflict
But he adds: "the most affected nations remain off track to reach the goal of halting and reversing the incidence of the disease."
Previous efforts to control malaria have proved less than successful.
In 1998 the Roll Back Malaria initiative aimed to halve malaria deaths by 2010 - but halfway through the programme deaths had actually risen.
Reversing the trend of increase in malaria and other diseases is one of the UN's Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving poverty and improving the quality of life by 2015.
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