Back to Basics in the Fight Against Malaria
With the world’s attention focused on civil wars, crime, unemployment, and other crises, malaria deaths are hardly the stuff of prime-time news. Nevertheless, almost half the world’s population, says the World Health Organization (WHO), lives today under the threat of malaria, and some 300 million to 500 million people fall ill with it each year, making malaria “the most widespread of all tropical diseases and one of the most lethal.” How deadly?
Every 20 seconds someone dies of malaria. That figure adds up to a death toll of over 1.5 million victims each year—a number equal to that of the entire population of the African nation of Botswana. Nine out of ten malaria deaths occur in tropical Africa, where most victims are young children. In the Americas, WHO registered the highest incidence of malaria in the Amazon area. Deforestation and other ecological changes have left a growing trail of malaria victims in that part of the world. In some of Brazil’s Amazonian communities, the problem has now become so serious that more than 500 out of every 1,000 inhabitants are infected.
Whether in Africa, the Americas, Asia, or elsewhere, malaria hits primarily the poorest population groups. These people, notes WHO, “have the least access to health services, can least afford personal protection and are the furthest from organized malaria control activities.” Even so, the plight of those poor is not beyond hope. In recent years, says TDR News, a newsletter on tropical-disease research, one of the most promising methods to prevent malaria deaths has become more available. The name of that lifesaver? Insecticide-impregnated bed nets.
Net Gains
Though using bed nets is a back-to-basics solution, Dr. Ebrahim Samba, director of WHO’s Africa office, told Panos Features, a newsletter of the Panos Institute, that trials to test the effectiveness of bed nets in the fight against malaria have shown “very exciting results.” In Kenya, for instance, using bed nets impregnated with biodegradable insecticides has cut overall deaths, not just malaria deaths, among children under five years of age by one third. Besides saving lives, “nets could radically reduce the burden on health services” because fewer patients will need hospital treatment for malaria.
One problem, however, has yet to be solved: Who pays for the nets? When people in one African nation were asked to contribute, most declined. And no wonder, for people living in countries that spend less than $5 (U.S.) per person a year on health care, even a mosquito net—with or without insecticides—is a luxury. However, since this method of prevention will cost governments less than treating malaria patients, UN experts note that “it would be a very cost-effective use of scarce government funds to distribute and fund impregnated bednets.” Indeed, for governments, providing bed nets may be a way to save funds. For millions of their poor citizens, though, it is much more—it is a means to save their lives.
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CDC, Atlanta, Ga.