South African singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka urged world leaders Saturday to wage war against malaria as she paid emotional tribute to a band member who died two years ago of the disease, which kills more than a million people every year.
Phumzile Ntuli was infected while on tour with Chaka Chaka in Gabon in 2004. Upon her return to South Africa, she fell into a coma, from which she never recovered.
"Malaria robbed South Africa of a wonderful musician; it robbed her son Menzi of his mother, her family of their daughter and me of a friend I valued and trusted," Chaka Chaka said at a memorial service in Durban, South Africa, intended to highlight the threat as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria meets there to evaluate progress curbing the epidemics.