by Dr. K Amponsah-Manager
I have written on malaria in the past. Since then, much has changed and nothing has changed.
There are more than 400 million cases of malaria annually. Most of malaria infections and deaths occur in Sub-Saharan African where the most vulnerable are infants, pregnant mothers and seniors. In fact, it is estimated that 90% of malaria-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Significant progress has been made in the fight against malaria as more effective drugs are made available. At the same time, challenges emerge as the plasmodium parasite develops resistance towards existing drugs. For instance, chloroquine which in the past used to be the most commonly prescribed medicine against malaria, even though is still used to treat and prevent malaria, is no longer as effective against the disease because the parasite developed resistance to the drug. There is currently no effective vaccine against malaria but there may be one in the horizon.
Even though malaria has not received global attention required for a killer of such profile, wealthy foundations, some private companies, and smart governments across the world are beginning to wake up and make malaria a priority. One of such foundations is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Malaria can be defeated, albeit, not overnight. The funding available for anti-malaria campaigns, and research and development is tiny compared to the challenges.
While governments, Foundations and private institutions work towards eradication and prevention, it is important for private citizens to join the partnership especially in efforts towards preventing malaria.
In the long run, I believe that prevention of malaria is the cost-effective route to take rather than treatment of the disease. However, for preventive measures to make a dent, individual participation and community involvement would have to be spurred up.
Early November of 2010 a series of papers published in a respected scientific journal, the Lancet cast a gloomy cloud over any hope of dealing with malaria, at least in our lifetime. The papers concluded by urging governments, donor agencies and foundations to focus more on minimizing the prevalence of malaria and not on eradicating the killer. While I agree with the paper that preventive efforts should be ramped up, I do not think donor agencies and governments should give up hope that malaria can be eradicated simply because it is too costly.
Current statistics show that in many of the malaria endemic countries, funding is less than US$1 per capita, and in fact it is less than US$0.5 in 16 malaria endemic countries, making up about 710 million people.
What is true is that malaria preventive measures have not been given as much attentions as treatment measures and they should. Because if there is less malaria, then there will be less need for treatment measures. Preventive measures can also be less costly.
For preventive measures to make the impact anticipated there has to be a strong partnership between communities, donor agencies and the African privileged. In many cases, it is the third party, the African privileged, at home and in the Diaspora, that are cut off from their communities by virtue of their education or social status. Unfortunately, the health and educational problems in African communities cannot be solved with foreign expatriates regardless of their passion and philanthropic ambition if the African elites sit on the fence and watch.
