Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Fighting malaria on many fronts
MALARIA is a preventable and curable disease. Despite tremendous progress made to curb malaria in Africa, it still kills a child every 60 seconds. The mosquito-borne infection costs Africa around $12 billion every year and in places where infections are recurring, up to 60% of school children have impaired learning ability.
South Africa had more than 7 800 malaria cases last year. Although community transmission is low, an outbreak could put nearly 5 million people in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga at risk. Bringing malaria risk to zero at home will not happen without co-ordinated malaria control efforts between South Africa, Eswatini and Mozambique (the MOSASWA region).
The United Nations Children’s
Fund shows that investment in malaria control falls short of the $7.8 billion needed to stay on target to eliminate it by 2030. This prompted African social benefit organisations to build crosssectoral networks to take on malaria in southern Africa.
Goodbye Malaria has fought the disease in Mozambique, South Africa and Eswatini for over a decade. Its elimination campaigns, including the use of eight mobile units for testing and treatment at key border posts in South Africa and awareness drives, has kept more than 4 million people in the MOSASWA region malaria-free in 2023. A form of vector control called indoor residual spray is also key to its success.
To eliminate malaria “you need to halt local transmission in a community,” says Sherwin Charles, CEO of Goodbye Malaria. Only when local transmission has stopped for three years will an area be declared malaria free.
“We are not winning the war. Malaria is having a devastating effect, particularly on children on the continent. Protecting them needs to become a way of life,” said Charles.
This life-threatening disease spreads to humans through specific types of mosquitoes that are infected by parasites in tropical countries. Early signs of malaria are fever, headaches, and chills within 10-15 days of being bitten by an infected mosquito. These symptoms are difficult to recognise and they can become severe or lead to death within 24 hours. This makes prevention tools essential – particularly in areas that do not have public health infrastructure.
Strategies to end malaria need to be comprehensive. Malaria nets alone will not prevent all infections because mosquitoes can bite people before they are under one. Medications also aren’t perfect because “more drug resistant kinds of malaria are emerging and they just don’t respond to treatment,” says Charles. When used together, insecticide-treated nets, medication and indoor residual spraying are tools that improve control.
Goodbye Malaria deploys teams of professionals to spray WHO approved insecticide in homes in high-transmission areas. The goal is for malaria-spreading mosquitoes to die when they land on surfaces in the home.
Malaria vaccines are another valuable tool to curb the disease because they are effective at preparing children for the worst symptoms. Both RTS and R21 jabs significantly reduce severe malaria and death in children.
The WHO estimates that at least 60 million doses of malaria vaccine will be needed in Africa by 2026.
“It’s the only way we’re going to win the war,” said Charles. “Ending malaria not only saves lives, it unlocks human potential.”