Bill Gates and George Osborne have unveiled a plan to spend billions to defeat malaria.

The Windows billionaire and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have announced £3 billion in funding over the next five years to fight the mosquito-borne disease.

The pair wrote in the Times: "When it comes to human tragedy, no creature comes close to the devastation caused by the mosquito.

"We both believe that a malaria-free world has to be one of the highest global health priorities."

£500 million a year of funding would come from Britain's overseas aid budget for the next five years, as well as £140 million this year from The Gates Foundation.

The funding is for research and to support efforts to eliminate the disease.

There were 438,000 malaria deaths in 2015, according to the World Health Organisation.

Most of these are children aged under five and the majority of them in Africa.

Efforts to control the disease have made significant progress in the past 15 years, but are threatened by the spread of resistance to antimalarial drugs and to insecticide, the WHO said in its World Malaria Report 2015.