Lifesavers

Malaria | U.S. Agency for International Development announced it would realign its malaria funding for 2006 | Priya Abraham

Roger Bate does not care who gets credit for taming the beast, but in truth he did much of the work. For the last two years, he and a dedicated band of experts have been skewering the U.S. Agency for International Development over its ineffective international malaria programs (see "Kill or be killed," Oct. 29). Now, finally, the agency has heard and is changing its ways.

The agency spends about $200 million annually fighting the mosquito-borne disease that afflicts 500 million a year, mostly in Africa, and kills 1 million, mostly children under 5. But instead of focusing on simple, life-saving commodities, such as drugs and insecticides, the agency marshaled almost all its funding toward "technical" assistance, or advice to countries on fighting the disease. So Mr. Bate, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, unleashed a steady onslaught of research and criticism on USAID's methods last year.