New York  - A new Global Malaria Action Plan was announced Thursday to slash the estimated 1 million deaths from malaria each year, drawing on fresh funding of over 3 billion dollars to be provided by the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other donors.

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria agreed to contribute 1.62 billion dollars over two years, which will include the distribution of 100 million additional bed nets.

The World Bank will give 1.1 billion dollars, while Gates and his foundation will give 169 million dollars. Other donors included the British government's international development department.

"Malaria control programs are achieving impressive new gains, and scientific innovation could soon give us powerful new vaccines and drugs," Gates said at the launch of the new programme at UN headquarters in New York.

"If we build on this momentum, we can save millions of lives and chart a long-term course for eradication of this disease," he said.

The African Union estimated that malaria has cost the continent an estimated 12 billion dollars a year in direct economic losses as millions of Africans are struck by the disease each year. African leaders have made fighting malaria a top priority.

"So many of our nations have been crippled by malaria," said Rwanda's President Paul Kagame. "African nations are united in fighting this disease through the Global Malaria Action Plan, and we commit to ensuring that expanded funding will be well used."

Fighting malaria deaths is part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which call for reducing the fatalities to near zero by 2015.

The Global Malaria Action Plan was developed with inputs from more than 250 experts from around the world. The UN said it was the first ever comprehensive blueprint to fight the mosquito-borne disease that still ravages populations in tropical countries.

The plan hopes to save more than 4.2 million lives by 2015.

The UN said implementing fully the global plan would require 5.3 billion dollars in 2009, 2.2 billion dollars of which should be spent in Africa. By 2010, it would require 6.2 billion dollars worldwide, with 2.86 billion dollars for Africa.

Hundreds of millions of dollars more are needed in expanding malaria control programmes, research on vaccines, drugs and other new tools. (dpa)