World experts meet in Australia to find ways to wipe out malaria

Australia is host to a meeting of World health experts which aims to find ways of eradicating malaria, one of the world's most dangerous killer diseases.

Though malaria was wiped out in Australia in the 80's it continues to wreak havoc elsewhere in the world and kills more than one million people every year and continues to flourish in 109 countries worldwide.

Although malaria is preventable and curable, according to the World Health Organisation, a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds and in 2006 there were 247 million cases of malaria, which caused around 880,000 deaths, mostly among African children.

The WHO says half of the world's population is at risk of malaria, particularly those living in lower-income countries and in some countries malaria is endemic - in other areas there are "malaria seasons" usually coinciding with the rainy season and devastating epidemics can occur when the mosquito-borne parasite is introduced into areas where people have had little prior contact with the infecting parasite and have little or no immunity to malaria, or when people with low immunity move into areas where malaria cases are constant.

These epidemics can be triggered by wet weather conditions and are then aggravated by floods or mass population movements driven by conflict.

The common first symptoms are fever, headache, chills and vomiting and usually appear 10 to 15 days after a person is infected - if not treated promptly with effective medicines, malaria can cause severe illness and is often fatal.

The inaugural meeting of the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network in Brisbane involves delegates from 8 countries in the Asia Pacific region and the Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Bob McMullen says the network is about the health of people, but it is central to economic development in the region and is a social, humanitarian and economic priority.

Ten countries in the Asia Pacific region are involved in the network headed by malaria expert Sir Richard Feachem who says the target date for complete eradication is 2050.

Delegates from Malaysia, South Korea, China, Solomons, Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, Indonesia and the Philippines will be at the meeting - Bhutan and North Korea, are not represented.

Sir Richard says the network will be an important tool in helping individual countries wipe-out the killer-disease by learning from each other and sharing expertise about their malaria elimination efforts.

Those most at risk from malaria are travellers from malaria-free regions, with little or no immunity, who go to areas with high disease rates, non-immune pregnant women and HIV-infected pregnant women.

A major concern on the part of experts is the rapid spread of drug resistance to commonly used antimalarial drugs and the WHO says intensive monitoring of drug potency is essential to protect against the spread of resistant malaria strains to other parts of the world.

Prevention focuses on reducing the transmission of the disease by controlling the malaria-bearing mosquito - the two main interventions for vector control are the use of mosquito nets treated with long-lasting insecticide and indoor residual spraying of insecticides but there is increasing mosquito resistance to the key insecticides DDT and pyrethroids, particularly in Africa.

Currently there are no equally effective and efficient insecticide alternatives to DDT and pyrethroids, and the WHO says the development of new pesticides is an expensive, long-term endeavour.

The WHO says insecticide resistance detection should be a routine feature of national control efforts to ensure that the most effective vector control methods are being used.

Sir Richard says if practical ways are used to stamp out the disease then about four million deaths could be prevented in the next six years.