Washington: US President George W. Bush told a gala dinner at the residence of Kuwait's ambassador to the US that the fight against malaria in Africa was part of the global war on terrorism.

Wednesday evening's dinner was sponsored by the Kuwait-America Foundation's Stand for Africa, where Bush paid tribute to a joint US-Kuwait effort to help end malaria in Africa.

Proceeds from the dinner are to be donated to the Malaria No More initiative, a New York-based non-profit organisation set up in 2006 at the first White House Summit on Malaria

"There's nothing more tragic than a young baby dying because of a mosquito bite," Bush said.

Bush said that the global terrorist movement finds recruits among people in "hopeless situations".

"And there's nothing more hopeless for a mother to see a baby die needlessly," he said. "And there's nothing more hopeless than a pandemic that sweeps through a continent."

That's why the Malaria No More initiative was a key "part of our efforts to make sure that peace prevails in the long term", Bush said.

The Kuwait-America Foundation was set up in 1991, inspired by the country's liberation from the 1990 Iraq invasion through a US-led coalition "to express gratitude for American sacrifice during the Gulf War", the group said on its website.

Funding comes from hundreds of Kuwaiti individuals, organisations, and corporations, it said.

Bush noted that during his recent trip to Africa, he learned that Zanzibar, part of Tanzania, had reduced the malaria infection rate from 20 percent to one percent among babies in just 18 months of an all-out effort to use protective nets against the disease-carrying insects.

Source : DPA