Malaria toll rivals ebola’s

DEVASTATING: 1 800 DIE IN BURUNDI FROM DISEASE AND SAME IN DRC FROM VIRUS THIS YEAR

Malaria has killed more than 1 800 people in Burundi this year, the United Nations (UN) humanitarian agency says, a death toll rivalling a deadly ebola outbreak in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In its latest situation report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said 5.7 million cases of malaria had been recorded in

Burundi this year – a figure roughly equal to half its entire population. Of those cases, 1 801 died from the mosquito-borne disease in Burundi between January 1 and July 21, Ocha said.

The tiny country of 11 million people in the African Great Lakes region has still not declared a national emergency, despite Ocha saying the outbreak crossed “epidemic proportions” in May.

“The national malaria outbreak response plan, which is currently being validated, has highlighted a lack of human, logistical and financial resources for effective response,” Ocha said.

“All stakeholders, including the national authorities and partners, are called upon to provide the requisite resources to mount a robust response to this event before it escalates.”

A lack of preventative measures like mosquito nets, climatic changes and increased movements of people from mountain areas with low immunity to malaria, were driving the crisis, Ocha said.

An Ocha official said “the decision to declare an epidemic is up to the Burundian state”.

The country declared a malaria epidemic in March 2017, when the country had recorded 1.8 million cases and 700 deaths, but was resisting doing the same now.

A senior government official, who declined to be named, said the government did not want to admit weakness with elections set for 2020. “We are less than a year away from the presidential election. (President Pierre) Nkurunziza, who is facing many crises, does not want to recognise what could be considered a failure of his health policy,” the official said.

Burundi, one of the poorest countries in the region, abuts DRC where the second-worst ebola outbreak in history has killed more than 1 800 people amid fears the infectious fever could spread beyond its borders.

But malaria is a much bigger killer on the continent. The World Health Organisation recorded nearly 220 million cases of it in 2017, with an estimated 435 000 deaths. – AFP