On World Malaria Day, I reflect on my time as a teacher in Africa 30 years ago, when my students routinely fell ill with malaria and died. I lost students, parents lost their children, and villages lost entire generations to this deadly disease. This is why I am so proud of the transformative work the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) does each day to bring cost-effective, life-saving tools, such as bed nets, insecticides, and medicines to people where they live. I am proud to report that over the past year, PMI successfully expanded its programming to Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D'Ivoire, Niger and Sierra Leone, and now benefits over 570 million people.

As a cross-Government initiative led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and co-implemented with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, along with support from many other Federal Departments and Agencies, PMI demonstrates the power of working together toward a shared objective: saving lives. 

CDC Director Robert Redfield and I recognize that PMI is an excellent example of how interagency coordination and programming can, and, should work.   We aim to expand this collaboration to all of our shared objectives in global health.

As a global community, we have achieved remarkable success in our fight against malaria. Together, we have cut malaria mortality by half in sub-Saharan Africa and saved 7 million lives worldwide. PMI's synergetic partnership with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is also crucial to our collective success.

The U.S. Government is an unwavering partner to national governments, other donors, multilateral organizations, the private sector, faith communities, academic institutions, and many others on the journey to Zero Malaria. This year's World Malaria Day theme, "Zero Malaria Starts with Me," recognizes this important role we all play in ending malaria. Today, I reaffirm the steadfast support of the United States to this goal.