Malaria kills a child every two minutes – and it could get worse
Every two minutes a child dies of malaria, and experts fear the rate could rise without better progress and more funding to tackle a disease that kills millions.
At the Reaching the Last Mile conference in Abu Dhabi, a panel of speakers yesterday warned of the disease’s spread and its resistance to some of the main drugs used to treat it.
Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites transmitted through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.
According to the World Health Organisation, in 2015, 91 countries and areas had ongoing malaria transmission concerns and there were about 212 million cases and 430,000 deaths. Ninety per cent of cases and deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa that year.
“The malaria parasite is quickly developing resistance, which highlights the continued need for research and development. Innovations are crucial,” said Austin Burt, professor of evolutionary genetics at Imperial College and principal investigator of Target Malaria.
“Millions of lives have been saved but more tools and innovation are needed. The key features we are looking for are innovations that will reduce transmission and are inexpensive and feasible to deploy.”
Increased prevention and control measures have led to a 29 per cent reduction in malaria mortality rates globally since 2010. But earlier this year scientists warned of the rapid spread of “super malaria” in South-East Asia. The Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok said there was a danger the disease would become untreatable.
The first-choice treatment for malaria is artemisinin in combination with piperaquine, but the parasite has evolved to resist both and in Vietnam the drug fails a third of the time. In Cambodia it was closer to 60 per cent of the time.
“We need to eliminate malaria in at least 35 countries and are calling for a doubling for our funding and services, which will allow us to reduce malaria,” said Dr Pedro Alonso, the director of the WHO’s global malaria programme.
Funding has stalled at international and regional levels, he said, “and that translates into the lack of progress we have seen in the past years”.
“We are off track, we can get back on track, but we need support. I’m always horrified to see that 30 per cent of cases get treated. There is still 70 per cent who are not. We could do a lot better.”
Since 2011, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, has donated US$30 million (Dh110m) towards eradicating malaria.
“Twice we eliminated but couldn’t sustain it. We had a bad experience. It is difficult to control,” said Sri Lanka’s minister of health, Dr Rajitha Harischandra Senaratne. “We need continuous campaigns and surveillance,” he said.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, said that the UAE had made tremendous contributions through the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. Dr Maha Barakat, adviser to the Executive Office, Abu Dhabi Government, is a Roll Back Malaria Partnership board member.
“Efforts to fight malaria have started to slow and our concern is that it is reversing. The resources need to scale up,” Dr Moeti said. “There is funding coming from outside and the global fund but we want this to be a high political priority for the national authority.
“We want the presidents of countries where malaria is endemic to talk about malaria when they talk to the world fund about development – not just about roads and infrastructure. Those are important but when you have a large number of people sick with malaria that is bad for your economy; dying of malaria, that is even worse for your economies.”
The UAE, she said, could do several things – “mobilise leadership at a global level, in terms of the global decisions, so that the leaders of endemic countries allocate money themselves”.
“I would like to see a president, ask his minister, ‘why is this going on now?’ ‘What is going on?’
“What problems are you having? What are the issues in terms of resources or accountability? People like the Crown Prince [of Abu Dhabi] can remind world leaders that this is a priority, do something about it … and keep this on the international and global health agenda,” Dr Moeti said.