Goal Of Eliminating Malaria In Sight: Experts
Date: 29-Apr-09
Country: SWITZERLAND
Author: Jonathan Lynn
Goal Of Eliminating Malaria In Sight: Experts Photo: Margaret
Aguirre/International Medical Corps/Handout
A refugee woman from Darfur waits for treatment for malaria
at the International Medical Corps' health centre hospital at Mile refugee
camp, west of Guereda in eastern Chad January 27, 2009.
Photo: Margaret Aguirre/International Medical Corps/Handout
GENEVA - Fresh efforts and funding to tackle malaria in recent years have
brought the goal of eradicating the deadly disease within sight, health
experts said on Friday.
Wiping out malaria worldwide could take decades but many countries where it
is endemic are on the brink of eliminating the disease, which infects up to
500 million people a year and kills nearly one million worldwide, they said.
"The vision of achieving elimination in a number of countries is certainly
in sight," said Rifat Atun, strategy director at the Global Fund to fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international financing institution.
Most malaria victims are children under the age of five and pregnant women.
Roughly 90 percent of fatalities are in Africa, where malaria accounts for
one in five childhood deaths.
The goal of eradicating malaria, caused by a parasite transmitted in
mosquito bites, could take until 2050 or 2060, said Richard Feachem,
chairman of the Malaria Elimination Group.
But it is now endemic in only about half the world's countries after being
eliminated from others such as Canada and Finland since 1945, he told a news
conference, launching two reports by the group for policymakers and health
specialists.
SQUEEZING MALARIA
One report focuses on destroying malaria in countries such as Mexico, South
Africa and China on the margins of the tropical areas where it is endemic.
Feachem said the strategy was aggressive control in the heartland to reduce
infection and death, elimination country by country from the margins, and
research into drugs, vaccines and insecticides.
He said countries could learn from tough rules imposed in Singapore. The
tropical city state makes it illegal for construction companies to allow
malaria-bearing mosquitoes to breed on building sites and makes individuals
responsible for preventing stagnant water gathering in their homes.
"In a country where the legislative and political environment permits it ...
legislation can play an important role, requiring householders to do certain
things," he said.
The fight against malaria takes several forms -- spraying bednets and homes
to deter mosquitoes, using drugs to treat infected people and finding a
vaccine to prevent infection.
Such treatments are brought to people in the world's poorest countries by
international organizations and private groups such as the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, buying drugs from pharmaceutical companies at preferential
prices.
Some of these methods are controversial. The pesticide DDT has saved
millions of lives from malaria, but concerns that its intensive use in
agriculture could spread cancer led to its being banned in many countries
for farming.
New medical treatments such as a drug developed by Swiss pharmaceuticals
company Novartis using artemisinin, a compound derived from a herb used in
Chinese traditional medicine, are driving down deaths and infections, said
Chris Hentschel of the Medicines for Malaria Venture.
The treatment, administered to 57 million people last year, saved half a
million lives last year. About 50 new drug projects are in the pipeline,
Hentschel said.
GlaxoSmithKline is about to start clinical trials of a vaccine in a test
involving 16,000 children in seven African countries, which could reach the
market within three years, the world's second-largest drugmaker said.
(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay)
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