Recent gains in combating malaria are being threatened by a shortfall in funding, a report by the World Health Organization has warned.

New funding is urgently needed, it says, because the largest source of money to fight the disease, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has dried up over the past few years, says the World Malaria Report 2012.1 In 2009 the Global Fund disbursed $1bn (£0.6bn; €0.8bn), but this fell to just over $500m in 2011. Its funding is projected to increase over the next few years.

Total funding for malaria control (domestic and international) is projected to remain at less than $2.7bn between 2013 and 2015, substantially below the $5.1bn needed to achieve universal coverage of antimalarial …