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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.

Malaria is a killer. About half a million people die annually from malaria, mostly children in sub-Saharan-Africa. In fact a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

Even though malaria has not yet received the attention it needs on the global stage, today wealthy foundations, companies, and some governments across the world are making malaria a priority. It was hoped that this momentum would continue for a while but, as we reported here last week, a series of papers published in a respected scientific journal, the Lancet, may put pressure on the breaks.

The team of researchers cast a gloomy cloud over any hope of eradicating malaria, at least in our lifetime. I need to admit that I have not yet read all the papers but their conclusion is clear: governments, donor agencies and foundations should now focus more on minimizing the prevalence of malaria and not on eradicating malaria. It is very easy to see how this could sap away the energy of organization like Malaria no More, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other organizations toiling to see the day when there will be no more malaria.

Anyone who doubts mankind’s ability to eradicate malaria may need to be reminded that the progress on malaria eradication in the US and Canada happened over a ‘relatively short time span’. In fact, it was not until the late 1890’s that scientists even learnt that the disease is caused by a parasite and that it is a mosquito that transmits the parasite from person to person. The assumption in those days was that malaria was caused by some ‘environmental dirt’. The word malaria actually comes from the Italian “mala aria”, meaning “bad air” because it was generally believed that malaria was caused by breathing in bad or foul air and vapors emanating from swamps marshy lands and latrines.

It is important to remember that, 70 to 80 years ago, Americans traveling to the eastern Tennessee valleys had the same fear they now have when traveling to Togo or Ivory Coast because of malaria. The story changed with the creation of the U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933 which established an organized malaria control program. At the time, malaria affected 30 percent of the population in the region where the TVA was incorporated. After implementing aggressive research and control operations, the disease was essentially eradicated in the TVA region by 1947.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta CDC was founded in 1946 to help control malaria. Within a few years of the campaign, malaria had been completely eradicated in the US.

The US did not win the battle over malaria overnight. Efforts to control malaria became national focus as far back as the early 20th century during the occupation American military in Cuba and the construction of the Panama Canal. It is recorded that malaria (and yellow fever) caused significant number of deaths among the workers of the canal. This triggered an aggressive program of malaria control which in 10 years had already made remarkable progress.

It is for these reasons that I have some concerns over the conclusions of the international team of researchers. Scientific possibility and budgetary recommendations perhaps should not be jammed together, especially when there is a huge regional disparity in the consequences of such recommendations.

Malaria can be defeated, albeit, not overnight. The funding available for anti-malaria campaigns, and research and development is tiny compared to the challenges. When the US announces a $10 billion annual budget for Africa it may appear too generous unless you know what we’re talking about. It is not Mali nor Zambia, but a continent of nearly 1 billion people.

We need to encourage non-governmental organizations, foundations and governments to keep on fighting. Efforts to minimize the prevalence of malaria should be encouraged but this cannot be an open-ended laissez faire attitude with no responsibility. There should be an aggressive program to eradicate the disease as it was done in the US and Canada.

Yes We Can

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Eradication of malaria is within reach, WHO reports

Eradicating malaria in Sub-saharan Africa, Yes We Can