The World Health Organization (WHO) has significantly lowered its estimate of the number of people who contract malaria annually, attributing the decrease to rapid urbanization in Asia that has disrupted the natural habitats of disease-carrying mosquitoes. According to a report by WHO, 247 million individuals were infected with malaria globally in 2006, as opposed to the previous estimate of 350 million to 500 million. The updated report also reduced the worldwide death toll from the disease by approximately 10 percent compared to the previous assessment issued by the United Nations agency three years ago, largely due to improved calculation methods. The World Health Organization stated that it is uncertain if there was a decrease in cases and deaths from malaria between 2004 and 2006. The report revealed that 881,000 people died from malaria in 2006, a decrease from previous estimates of over 1 million deaths annually. Malaria primarily affects infants, children, and pregnant women. Significant amounts of public funding have been allocated to combat malaria through organizations such as the WHO, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Clinton Foundation. The Roll Back Malaria Partnership is calling for an increase in funding for malaria to $3.4 billion per year, up from $1.2 billion, to improve access to artemisinin-based drugs and insecticide-treated bed nets for prevention. Estimating the global prevalence of diseases is a challenging task, and public health experts often need to make substantial revisions to their initial estimates. The WHO revised its estimate of AIDS virus infections to 33 million from 40 million last year after receiving new data about the epidemic in India. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also increased its estimate of annual HIV infections by 40 percent due to more precise reporting methods. According to WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, less than one-third of the WHO's member states have reliable disease monitoring systems, making it difficult to accurately document diseases like malaria, which can be mistaken for the flu in the early stages. To address this issue, the WHO will now issue yearly malaria reports to provide decision-makers with up-to-date information on the disease. Chan emphasized the importance of reliable information and analysis, especially with the significant funding and efforts aimed at reducing the malaria burden in recent years. Novartis AG's medication Coartem is utilized for the treatment of malaria, and various other pharmaceutical companies, such as Austria's Intercell, are working on developing malaria vaccines. However, it is anticipated that these vaccines will not be available on the market for several years. Malaria is predominantly found in Africa, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating the number of cases based on climate conditions that impact mosquito breeding, as well as some sample surveys. In 2006, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania were identified as the countries with the highest malaria-related fatalities by the WHO. Outside of Africa, the countries most affected by malaria included India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.