At the Malaria Forum in October 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates called for a new commitment to eradicate malaria from the globe. And nearly four years later, we have made remarkable progress in the fight against this horrible disease, yet eradication remains an audacious but worthy goal.

We simply cannot allow the human and financial cost of this disease to continue. Even if we were willing to put up with it, history has shown that the malaria parasite and its vectors adapt, developing resistance to medicines and insecticides. This ability to adapt and thrive tells us that malaria cannot remain controlled for very long.

Eradication is our only long-term option.

A reasonable target date for eradication is 2050. This is driven by the fact that it may take 20 years to develop some of the new tools and another 20 years to interrupt transmission everywhere. Of course, we will strive to achieve eradication more quickly.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has taken several steps to revise our malaria strategy from a focus on reducing the malaria burden to interrupting transmission of the disease. The first was to support a two-year consultative process involving more than 250 scientists to provide input and prepare a malaria eradication research and development agenda, called malERA.

The five components of the resulting strategy are:

• integrated interventions and modeling to identify new tools needed for eradication and the best combinations of tools for elimination in different settings
• research and development (R&D) to preserve the tools that work now (long-lasting insecticide nets, indoor residual spraying, and drugs for treatment) from the threat of resistance
• R&D to develop new tools needed to interrupt transmission, including vaccines, drugs, and new vector control paradigms
• delivery of successful tools as they become available
• advocacy to ensure adequate financing, policies, and commitment

As part of this strategy, the foundation supports the Global Malaria Action Plan targets of:

• reducing global malaria deaths to near zero by 2015
• eliminating malaria in 8 to 10 countries by 2015
• eradicating malaria globally by reducing the incidence of malaria to zero through progressive elimination in the long term, with a target date for eradication of 2050

At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we will continue to work with grant recipients and partners to improve existing tools and discover new ones to reduce and prevent malaria transmission—and eventually eradicate malaria worldwide.

You can read more about our malaria strategy here (PDF).