At a meeting with religious leaders, she also announced that two million dollars would be disbursed over the next three years to Mozambique's Inter-Religious Council for the fight against this disease.
The money has been granted under the Presidential Malaria Initiative (PMI), set up by her husband, US President George W. Bush.
Laura Bush claimed that the involvement of religious organisations in fighting malaria is fundamental, since "they can reach areas that many of us, and which the national anti-malaria programme itself, cannot reach. They can help get the message out to people telling them how they can protect themselves against malaria".
Health Minister Ivo Garrido said that Laura Bush's visit illustrated "the very clear commitment" by the United States government to assist Mozambique in reducing the impact of malaria, which is the single largest cause of death in the country.
As for why Zambezia had been chosen, Garrido said "That was the agreement we reached, although any province would have done.
But since we have already been working for some years in southern Mozambique on malaria, with the Libombo Spatial Development Initiative, covering Maputo province, and now reaching Gaza, we thought it would be good to spend this money on Zambezia".
The chairperson of the Inter-Religious Council, Anglican Bishop Dinis Sengulane, said the American grant encourages religious bodies to continue their work against malaria.
He said the money will be spent on infrastructures, on training religious leaders and members of the community in such techniques as spraying against mosquitos, and in distributing insecticide-treated bed nets.
The Inter-Religious Council to Fight Malaria was set up in 2006 in partnership with the PMI. When President Bush established the PMI the previous year, its ambition was to cut deaths caused by malaria by 50 per cent.
During her short visit Laura Bush, accompanied by the coordinator of the PMI, Admiral Timothy Ziemer, was received by President Armando Guebuza, visited the Maputo Central Hospital, and a mosquito spraying centre in the outlying suburb of Machava.
In the first quarter of 2007, 1.48 million cases of malaria were notified in Mozambique, with 967 known deaths. This is a decline on the figures for the same period in 2006, when there were 1.78 million cases, and 1,538 deaths.
SOURCE: AIM
