An international fund has provided a total of $3.7 million to a humanitarian aid project to eliminate malaria in North Korea this year, the Voice of America reported Friday.

Under the financial donations from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund has been providing mosquito nets, insecticides and preventive medicines and remedies for malaria for North Korean residents, the U.S.-based media report said.

VOA said that UNICEF has offered a total of 2.27 million mosquito nets to North Korean households, as well as insecticides, since 2010.

Of the 1.7 million North Korean children under five years old, some 10,000, or 0.6 percent, have contracted malaria, the VOA said.

The Geneva-based Global Fund will provide $8.8 million to the malaria elimination project for the impoverished communist country from this year to June 2018, the news media said.

The organization is a public-private health partnership and international financing institution that aims to boost countries' and partners' capacity to provide essential commodities and strengthen service delivery to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Since the Global Fund's inception in 2002, UNICEF has been an active partner at global and country levels, contributing to a stronger child focus in the Global Fund's policies, investments and reporting. (Yonhap)