The tide has turned on malaria, with mortality rates for children in
Africa down by half, but a stronger surveillance system is urgently
needed to prevent new outbreaks and resurgences, United Nations
officials today warned, marking the sixth annual World Malaria Day.
“We
must stay focused until the job is done,” said Ray Chambers, UN Special
Envoy for Malaria. “The world has an ethical obligation to continue to
protect the hundreds of millions of children who have slept safely under
a bed net and who have had access to treatment.”
Child deaths from malaria declined from one million in 2008 to
under 500,000 thanks to a community of malaria supporters who delivered
nearly 44 million long-lasting mosquito nets in the first-quarters of
this year alone, Mr. Chambers said.
“We have arrived at this historic moment thanks to the dedicated
leaders of endemic countries; committed donor countries and
organizations,” he added, including the UN-backed Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the World Bank, and national
Governments.
However, the disease killed an estimated 627,000 people in 2012,
mostly children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa, according
to figures cited by the UN. More than 200 million cases are believed to
occur each year, most of them never tested or registered.
In his remarks on the Day, UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said: “While we applaud progress to date, we must confront
the fact that malaria still kills more than half a million people every
year. Too many cases still go untested, unregistered and untreated.”
As such, the UN chief repeated his call for continued investment
and sustained political commitment, and will to improve malaria
prevention and control.
“We need more funding to maintain progress and continue scaling
up coverage of effective malaria interventions,” he said, also calling
for more resources to develop and maintain effective surveillance
programmes and to combat increasing mosquito resistance to insecticides
and parasite resistance to antimalarial drugs.
This year’s World Malaria Day is marked as the international
community is accelerating progress towards the anti-poverty targets
known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Part of the MDGs is the target of halving and reversing the incidence of malaria by 2015.
“Malaria is preventable and curable,” said UN General Assembly
President John Ashe who is one of the key officials spearheading the
push towards reaching the MDGs and creating a new sustainable
development agenda.
“Our effort must be a global one,” he added. “We know what it
takes to stop this disease, and now we must work to make that knowledge
universal.”
This year, the UN World Health Organization (WHO)
is launching a manual to help countries to assess the technical,
operational and financial feasibility of moving towards malaria
elimination.
WHO’s new guide, From malaria control to malaria elimination: a manual for elimination scenario planning ,
will provide these countries with a comprehensive framework to assess
different scenarios and timelines for moving towards elimination,
depending on programme coverage and funding availability.
“Increased political commitment and the expansion of global
malaria investments have saved some 3.3 million lives since 2000,” says
Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General at WHO. ”Countries where malaria
remains endemic now want to build on this success.”
Since 2000, there has been a 42 per cent reduction in malaria
mortality rates globally, and a 49 per cent decline in the WHO African
Region. This progress has led some malaria-endemic countries, even those
with historically high burdens of malaria, to start exploring the
possibility of elimination.
But although many countries have the political will to commit to
elimination, technical, operational and financial obstacles remain,
particularly in countries that have a high disease burden.
The WHO manual will help countries assess what resources they
need to reduce malaria transmission to very low levels, i.e. the point
at which focused elimination programmes can start in earnest. It will
also help them consider appropriate timelines and provide them with
essential knowledge for long-term strategic planning for malaria
programmes.
“This long-term view on malaria is critical: it is vital to plan
for the period after elimination,” says Dr John Reeder, Director of
WHO’s Global Malaria Programme. “If interventions are eased or
abandoned, malaria transmission can re-establish relatively quickly in
areas that are prone to the disease, leading to a resurgence in
infections and deaths.”
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