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Malaria prevention
Net results
Dec 14th 2010, 16:59 by The Economist online
Progress is being made in tackling malaria
THE World Health Organisation’s annual report on malaria was published on December 14th. As with the report on AIDS, the picture is one of cautious optimism. Malaria is still a huge killer. Nearly 800,000 people, most of them children, succumb each year. But what was, only a decade ago, a desultory campaign against the disease now looks like a determined assault. New drugs, based on a plant extract called artemisinin, have been one arm of this assault. The other, as the chart shows, has been the spread of insecticide-drenched bednets, which protect sleepers from the mosquitoes that carry malarial parasites. The result has been a reduction in new cases of more than 50% in 11 countries in Africa, the worst affected continent, over the past ten years. Elsewhere, similar falls have been seen in 32 of the 56 countries where malaria is endemic. Overall, the number of annual worldwide deaths is estimated as 781,000 (admittedly with a margin of error of more than 150,000), down from 985,000 in 2000.
Watch "Malaria's frontline", our audio slideshow on efforts to detect and treat the disease on Thailand's border with Myanmar.
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Good news, I've read estimates that Western environmentalists' success in banning DDT from malaria-infested countries led to around 50 million preventable deaths, is DDT back on the agenda now?
New cures to malaria have to be used with caution, so that the Malarial parasite is not made immune to them in the long run. It would be better, perhaps, to target the mosquito or the agent of malaria. Perhaps, cures are never the answer, but prevention could always be the answer. How can the agent of malaria be made a non agent? How can the malaria virus not be associated with a carrier to the virus?
How is the malaria virus, different in India, and sub-Saharan Africa? Perhaps, Malaria is widespread in India, too. Development is a combination of factors, and is not dependent on economic development, only. Perhaps, in emerging nations, development depends on progress in health issues.
I am certain that malaria (and disease burden in general) has played a pivotal role in the underdevelopment of Africa to date. Having had the disease numerous times I can vouch for its dibilitating effects on productivity.
I am truly thankful that malaria has started to receive the focus and funding it deserves, having been almost totally excluded for a decade or so whilst the obsession with AIDS raged. The huge increase in the use of nets is due to the immense work of the UN, NGOs and other charities and is proof that well directed aid can have great benefits.
@Gengis
DDT is definitely not back on the agenda, but it might have been worth continuing with it until the Anophelese mosquiti was wiped out. But that is history now.
There is also a potential vaccine in the offerring which could be the final piece in the puzzle in the finally eradicating malaria.
@Aditya
Malaria is not a virus - its caused by an organism known as a Protist and called Plasmodium. The common malarial strain in Africa is Falciparum - which is the really deadly strain. Vivax is the common strain in India.
Good news. But why does the chart show the change in an intermediate outcome (use of bednets) when data on the final impact is apparently available ("a reduction in new cases of more than 50% in 11 countries")? I'm not interested in use of bednets per se: I'd prefer to see how the rate of malaria cases has declined.