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The World Bank has been accused of publishing false accounts and wasting money on ineffective medicines in its malaria treatment programme.
The World Bank has been accused of publishing false accounts and wasting money on ineffective medicines in its malaria treatment programme.
A Lancet paper claims the bank faked figures, boosting the success of its malaria projects, and reneged on a pledge to invest $300-500 million in Africa. It also claims the bank funded obsolete treatments against expert advice.
The bank has denied the allegations and says it is investing $500 million to $1 billion (£280 million -£560m) over the next five years. But it also admits it is not easy, and sometimes "not even possible", to know exactly how much input from each donor goes into a specific activity.
The claims against the bank, made by 13 international public health experts headed by Amir Attaran, of Canada's University of Ottawa, centre on the financial pledges the fund made to fight malaria on the African continent and a programme in India.
The researchers accused the bank of failing to reverse historic "neglect" of the battle against malaria and of hyping their spending on that battle in Africa.
The paper highlights a promise to lend Africa $300 million -$500 million for the battle against malaria. It goes onto say that the bank appeared to backtrack, pointing to accounts that say it had earmarked $100-150 million for malaria-control worldwide between 2000 and 2005.
In a rebuttal article, the bank's Jean-Louis Sarbib, says that between 2006 and 2008 $500 million in expected commitments for malaria control would be spent in Africa and Asia. The Lancet study also alleges that the World Bank hyped the results of its malaria control programme in India.
They quote the bank saying that it reduced deaths from malaria in the Indian states of Gujarat by 58 per cent, Maharashtra by 98 per cent and Rajasthan by 79 per cent. The authors say they doubted malaria could be reduced so markedly in such a short time and requested and obtained official statistics from India's own national malaria programme.
According to India's Directorate of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, deaths from malaria rose in all three states in the 2002-3 period in question.