Malaria still biggest killer of children in Africa

According to new report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), progress has been made in preventing and treating malaria since 2000 and more countries are introducing the latest preventative measures to beat the disease.

Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of WHO says even countries with limited resources and a heavy malaria burden now have a better opportunity to control the disease with proven interventions such as insecticide-treated nets, and the latest artemisinin-based combination therapies but these must reach many more people before a real impact on malaria will be seen.

Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF says that malaria kills three times as many children in Africa as HIV infection and in order to reduce death rates more focus must be placed on preventing it. Difficulties in getting reliable information about malaria in most affected countries means it is too soon to measure the impact of the recent expansion of malaria control strategies.

Countries where the previous mainstays of malaria treatment, such as chloroquine, are no longer effective are also adopting new therapies. Since 2001, 42 malaria-endemic countries, 23 of them in Africa, have been using the latest generation of antimalarial medicines. An additional 14 countries are in the process of changing their malaria treatment policy and 22 have embarked on home-care programmes which enable families and other care-givers to manage malaria.

Sufficient supplies of the artemisinin-based combination therapies are expected to be available by the end of 2005 to meet demand, thanks to the combined efforts of UN agencies, other multilateral agencies, non-profit groups and corporations working together under the umbrella of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership.

The report says that in 2003, some 350 to 500 million people worldwide became ill with malaria, and halting and reversing the incidence of malaria by 2015 is a target of the Millennium Development Goals. The more immediate goal of Roll Back Malaria is to halve the burden of malaria worldwide by 2010.

A major obstacle to achieving that goal, the report explains, is a lack of funds. The report estimates that US$ 3.2 billion per year is needed to effectively combat malaria in the 82 countries with the highest disease burden. This year, US$ 600 million was made available for global malaria control.

WHO and UNICEF welcome the recent World Bank announcement of its plan to commit US$ 500 million to US$ 1 billion over the next five years, which will help more people get access to essential malaria prevention and treatment.