The World Health Organization, the UN agency which over ten years ago started a campaign to cut the number of malaria cases and deaths in half by 2010, reports that Malaria is fast declining in countries where it had been endemic.
Just five years ago, the anti-malaria campaign was in such poor shape that this news from the UN agency is surprising and gladdens the hearts of both researchers and residents of regions prone to malaria.
Even though experts agree that the campaign will fall short of meeting the goals it set over a decade ago, significant progress has been made over the past few years in distributing the means to prevent and treat malaria and in bringing down death rates in many countries.
As a result, malaria-related deaths have also fallen globally from 985,000 in 2000 to 781,000 in 2009, with most of the deaths registered in children under five. In short, the anti-malaria campaign efforts are saving around 204 000 lives per year right now over the baseline in 2000.
In Uganda, for instance, the report shows that the number of households owning at least one insecticide-treated mosquito net has increased over the last two years from 42 to 47 per cent.
Over the past three to four years, millions of insecticide-treated bed nets have been delivered to sub-Saharan Africa. The number of people whose houses were protected by insecticide spraying jumped to 75 million in 2009, protecting another 10 percent of the population at risk.
The most encouraging news is that experts say that with continued effort, the number of malaria deaths could be halved by the end of 2011 and practically eliminated by 2015.
We posted an article here on November 7th 2010 with the title ‘Eradicating malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, Yes We Can’
How ‘prophetic’ we were.
We actually can.
Some of us abroad now to have step up and ask how we can help in both education and monetary contribution to NGOs that are working in AIDS. It affects our bros ans sis home
I’m of the same hope that malaria can be defeated. But our own governments have to make it a priority, not the US or UK.
YES WE CAN!
Even with the moderate support, if we’ve made this much progress, if the develped world pays more attention, we can have a world with no malaria in less than 10 years. I really believe this.