Malaria deaths halved since 2000: WHO report

THE UN AGENCY ALSO WARNED OF CONTINUING GAPS IN ACCESS TO MOSQUITO NETS AND ANTI-MALARIA TREATMENTS

GENEVA: The number of people dying from malaria has almost halved since 2000, although progress in west Africa risks being reversed by the Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

The UN agency also warned of continuing gaps in access to mosquito nets and anti-malaria treatments, as well as worrying signs of resistance to insecticides and drugs.

“These are truly unprecedented results and phenomenal news in terms of global health,” said Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO’s global malaria programme.

Alonso attributed the progress in large part to increasing financial and political commitment, as well as improvements in diagnosing and therefore treating cases.

However, despite a threefold increase in investment since 2005, malaria programmes are still underfunded — $2.7 billion (2.2 billion euros) in 2013 against a $5.1 billion international target. And as a result, major gaps remain.

Access to insecticide-treated bed nets has improved significantly, but 278 million people at risk in sub-Saharan Africa still live in households without one.

Some 44% of people at risk from malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa used mosquito nets in 2013, compared to just 2% in 2004. And an expected 214 million nets will be delivered there by the end of 2014.

“We can win the fight against malaria. We have the right tools and our defences are working,” said WHO director-general Margaret Chan. “But we still need to get those tools to a lot more people if we are to make these gains sustainable.”

WHO MALARIA REPORT

13 of the 97 malarial countries reported no cases of the disease last year, including Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka, which recorded their first ever zero result of all malaria deaths occur in Africa drop in mortality since 2000 million people at risk don’t have mosquito nets at home

African children under the age of five died from the disease in 2013

of the region’s 35 million pregnant women receive no preventative treatment.