UN SG Ban Ki-moon |
The Roll Back Malaria Secretariat has indicated a record success and
anticipates near-zero malaria deaths in next the decade if efforts are
sustained.
A report launched on Monday by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM) finds
that the world has made remarkable gains against malaria in the past ten years,
increasing optimism that an end to the disease is in sight.
The report “Roll Back Malaria
Partnership: A Decade of Partnership and Results” said
global malaria deaths have dropped by an estimated 38 percent, with 43
countries (11 of them in Africa) cutting malaria cases or deaths by 50 percent
or more, reversing the trend of the previous decade and saving over a million
lives.
“Despite these impressive gains, many people at risk of malaria still lack
sufficient access to critical treatment and prevention options, such as
insecticide treated nets, indoor spraying with insecticides, diagnostic
testing, and effective antimalarial drugs, including drugs to treat and prevent
malaria in pregnant women,” RBM said on September 12, 2011. “There is more to
be done to address these issues, but with appropriate commitments, the gains
can accrue rapidly.”
“Only rarely have we seen a public health initiative provide so much return
on investment. Thanks to the efforts of the Roll Back Malaria Partners over the past
decade, we have a foundation that allows affected countries and communities to
reach even greater results in the years to come", said the United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the launch of the report.
“With approximately US$5 billion mobilised over this period, coverage has
risen across all interventions to prevent and treat malaria, particularly
insecticide-treated nets. Enough nets have been distributed to cover nearly 80
percent of the population at risk in sub-Saharan Africa.”
And Dr Robert Newman, Director of WHO's Global
Malaria Programme, argued the report's findings are cause for
real optimism. "The results of the past decade exceed what anyone could
have predicted and prove that malaria control is working. Many of these
achievements have occurred in the last five years, which tells us that we are
becoming increasingly effective in our ability to tackle this disease."
This recent stepping up of malaria control is believed to be as a result of
a number of new agencies and initiatives created that greatly contribute to the
fight against malaria, including the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the US President's
Malaria Initiative, the World Bank Malaria Booster Program, the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, UNITAID, the African
Leaders Malaria Alliance, the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Malaria,
various civil society organizations and others.
However, RBM said even those countries which have already demonstrated
remarkable success in controlling malaria continue to face significant
challenges today. The progress achieved to date through greatly scaled-up
prevention with insecticide treated nets and indoor residual spraying is
threatened by the emergence of mosquitoes resistant to current insecticides.
Gains are also threatened by the emergence of malaria parasites, identified
in the Mekong region in Asia, which are resistant to artemisinin, the key
component of the most effective drug combinations currently available to treat
malaria.
The Roll Back Malaria Partnership, founded in 1998 by UNICEF, WHO, UNDP and
the World Bank to coordinate global action against malaria, now includes over
500 private and public sector partners.
- Author: Modou S. Joof for The Voice Newspaper
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