Malaria kills about 1 million people a year, 85% of whom are children, and more than 9 out of 10 deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s a shocking figure and what is more shocking is that these deaths are preventable. Deaths from malaria are only part of the story because millions of work-hours are lost each year in Africa from malaria-related illnesses.
You can find out more about malaria from the BBC website and more about the life-cycle of the malaria parasite from an article I wrote earlier called The African mosquito – Tiny … but deadly?
On the agenda
A meeting in September 2009 by 14 African heads of state to unite on malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa launched an ambitious scheme to rid Africa of malaria deaths in 6 years by distributing 240 million bednets to protect people from mosquito bites.
On November 3rd 2009 at a meeting of the 5th Pan-African Malaria Conference at Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi, a Cameroonian scientist, Dr Wlifred Mbachama, says that Africa is not ready for the malaria vaccine. He cited the lack of adequate storage facilities and other regulatory requirements and made a plea for governments to make sure the infrastructure and legislation was in place . (see below for more on vaccines)
Current research
Several posts on SciDev.net caught my eye this morning:
A new computer modelling technique points to the promise of combined malaria control and ’breaks the biology of mosquitoes and malaria transmission down to the level of mosquito feeding cycles’. This model uses both insecticide treated bed-nets and new biopesticides which infect mosquitoes with a fungus which reverses resistance to insecticides.
Insecticide ‘wallpaper’ lethal to malaria mosquitoes describes the results of a new research project in Benin which uses a plastic insecticide treated ‘wallpaper’ in huts. It shows that ‘when used in combination with insecticide-treated bed-nets (ITNs) in hut trials, the sheeting killed all mosquitoes, and completely prevented bites. Results were published last week (20 October) in the Malaria Journal’. The big advantage of the sheeting over spraying inside walls with insecticide is reduced health problems from toxicity. The research even showed that 80% of mosquitoes were killed when only the top third of the walls were sprayed to reduce contact with the insecticide by children.
The development of a vaccine against malaria has taken a big step forward with the news that the clinical trials of the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biologicals’ RTS,S vaccine is the first potential vaccine to move to phase 3 trials. The steps in malaria vaccine development are complex, but the trial has now moved into phase 3 and will eventually enroll 16,000 children from 6 weeks to 17 months in 11 sites in 7 African countries. Ten of the eleven sites are now active. This vaccine has been developed specifically for Africa and is part of PATH malaria vaccine initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. African governments will need to make provision quickly for the legislation and additional storage facilities (central and local) for this potential vaccine to be distributed once approved. It will probably take 3-5 years to develop capacity (according to Dr Wlifred Mbachama at the 5th Pan-African Malaria Conference)
Drug resistance is a major problem in the treatment of malaria in Africa and the high price of effective combination therapy antimalarials means that many cannot afford treatment. I wrote earlier about Uganda, Malaria, Artemisinin and Politics.
The research shows that the use of combined methods using treated bed-nets, clearing of breeding grounds, indoor surface treatment, biopesticides plus affordable effective combination antimalarials is the way forward in the fight against malaria.
Books
Intensifying the Fight Against Malaria: The World Bank’s Booster Program for Malaria Control in Africa (Document of the World Bank)
Host genetic susceptibility to tuberculosis and malaria in Africa
