Malaria remains the world’s most important tropical parasitic disease. Unfortunately Sub-Sahara Africa still bears the brunt of this disease.

Prevalence

According to the latest WHO estimates (2015), there were 214 million cases of malaria in 2015 and 438 000 deaths. Ongoing malaria transmission occurred in 95 countries and about 3.2 billion people (about half the world’s population) were at risk of malaria.

Seventy per cent of those who died were children under the age of five. Apart from children, other high-risk groups were pregnant women, non-immune travellers, refugees, displaced persons and labourers entering endemic areas. Malaria epidemics related to political upheavals and economic difficulties contributed dramatically to death tolls and human suffering. Global warming and other climatic events such as El Niño also played their role in increasing the risk of disease because the associated weather disturbances influenced mosquito breeding sites and hence the transmission of the disease.

In 2015, 90% of malaria deaths occurred in Sub-Sahara Africa, where the financial cost of malaria is crippling economic development due to the high cost of medicines and reduced productivity. Since 2000, the risk of malaria has decreased by 53% globally, but in Sub-Sahara Africa the decrease has been only 32%.

Prognosis

While current treatments for malaria are highly effective, they are expensive for people in poor countries. Malaria parasites are also becoming increasingly resistant to insecticides used in bed-nets and sprays, and malaria parasites are becoming resistant to today’s medications.

New methods for controlling mosquitoes and treating malaria are urgently needed if malaria is to be eradicated. A preventive vaccine would provide the best long-term hope to defeat malaria and would be especially beneficial for those at greatest risk: infants, children, the elderly and pregnant women.

Researches aim to have a safe, effective and affordable malaria vaccine available by 2025 and a new series of case studies on the elimination of malaria has recently been launched and funded by the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Malaria Programme, the Global Health Group at the University of California (San Francisco) and the Bill Gates Foundation.

 

Sources
www.gatesfoundation.org
www.theglobalfund.org
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/

 

(Revised by M van Deventer)