How to Prevent Malaria

by

QUESTION

How to prevent malaria?

ANSWER

Despite its wide geographic range and potentially severe consequences, there are actually several effective strategies for controlling malaria, many of which have been successful of reducing the burden of the disease, and especially the number of deaths, in various regions.

The first step towards control is prevention. This has largely been achieved through the distribution of long-lasting insecticide treated bednets, which prevent people from being bitten by infected mosquitoes as they sleep at night. While this has drastically reduced the number of cases of malaria in some settings, and particularly in certain high risk groups such as children under five and pregnant women, some worrying new data just was published which suggested that in high transmission zones, bednets may actually exacerbate re-infection rates for older children and adults, and lead to insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. As such, while bednets clearly are still a key prevention strategy, their effect should be closely monitored.

Secondly, there is diagnosis and treatment. These go hand in hand, as they usually require the availability of health services or health professionals. If malaria infections are rapidly and accurately diagnosed, appropriate treatment can be swiftly given, preventing the progression of the disease and allowing the patient to recover. Appropriate administration of medication, as well as adherence to the full course of the drugs, can also help to prevent drug-resistance from emerging.

Finally, there are on-going research initiatives looking to find new ways to tackle malaria. For example, many scientists are involved in the search for a malaria vaccine, which, if safe, effective, and sufficiently cheap, could transform the way we think about fighting malaria. Similarly, due to the unfortunate circumstance of ever-increasing drug-resistance, particularly in Plasmodium falciparum, new types of medication are constantly being tested and trialled. The combination of all these efforts has managed to reduce the mortality of malaria greatly over the past few years; the aim now, espoused by organisations such as Malaria No More, is to get to a point where deaths from malaria are eliminated by the year 2015.

 

Does malaria kill?

by

QUESTION

Is malaria a killer disease?

ANSWER

Yes. Malaria causes somewhere between 700,000 to 1 million deaths worldwide, mostly in children under five, and mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. As such, it is actually one of the leading causes of death in young children in developing countries.

Given this high mortality, many initiatives working to control malaria are dedicated to reducing the number of deaths as a key way of lowering the overall burden of this disease; groups such as Malaria No More and the Roll Back Malaria Partnership have committed to bringing the number of deaths from malaria to zero or near zero by 2015.

What can I do to help?

by

QUESTION:

What is there I can do to help them?

ANSWER:

Thank you for your concern! Probably the easiest and most direct way you can support the people suffering from malaria infections, especially in the developing world, is by helping to spread awareness about the impact of the disease and how it affects millions of people worldwide.

To help with these campaigns, you can also donate to organisations dedicated to fighting malaria, such as Malaria No More, or the Nothing But Nets campaign.

Finally, if you or people you know are going to be travelling to malarial areas, make sure that you are fully informed of the risks of malaria and take all the preventative actions that you should to make sure you yourself don’t get malaria as well!

Cases of Malaria

by

QUESTION:

What are reasons for the increasing number of cases of malaria?

ANSWER:

As I recently wrote in answer to another Q&A post, it is difficult to determine whether cases of malaria are indeed increasing or not. For one, a large number of cases are not reported every year, making accurate estimates difficult. Secondly, the world’s population is growing, and it is growing at the greatest rate in Africa, where the majority of malaria cases occur. As such, even if the proportion of people with malaria decreases over time, due to health initiatives such as distributing long-lasting insecticide treated bednets or free treatment, the total number of cases may still rise. Another problem we face in the fight against malaria is climate change: as the world’s patterns of rainfall and temperatures change, new areas become susceptible to malaria transmission, putting more people at risk. However, what is very encouraging is that deaths from malaria seem to be decreasing on a global scale. Malaria No More is an organisation dedicated to eliminating deaths from malaria by the year 2015; more information about their methods and some of their success stories can be found on their website.

Current Status of Malaria

by

QUESTION:

What is the current status on malaria? And does P.knowlesi spp. pose a greater threat compared to the others? Does the number malaria cases increase every year globally? Is P. knowlesi spp. more dangerous than the others and why?

ANSWER:

I’ll answer your question about Plasmodium knowlesi first. So far, it is considered a relatively minor source of malaria in humans, as its natural host are macaque monkeys and so it is usually thought of as a “zoonotic” disease.Between 2000-2008, there were only been about 400 reported cases of P. knowlesi, all restricted to south-east Asia, and mainly Borneo. These figures are low compared to other forms of malaria, such as P. falciparum, which in Africa alone accounts for millions of cases a year, and close to a million fatalities. However, there are some causes for concern with regards to P. knowlesi.

First of all, it appears to be an emerging human infection; the first cases were traced back to the 1960s, with the number of cases increasing in recent years. While some of this increase is likely the result of higher accuracy diagnosis and awareness about malaria, it is also hypothesised that the increasing population density in forested areas of south-east Asia may also be leading to greater numbers of people being exposed to this parasite. Secondly, although easily treated with anti-malarial drugs, the life cycle of P. knowlesi is such that it reproduces very rapidly in the human host, causing cycles of fever every 24 hours (a so-called “quotidian fever”). This means that the infection can progress rapidly, becoming severe in a matter of days, and therefore requiring prompt treatment. Finally, although locally restricted to south-east Asia, P. knowlesi has become the dominant form of malaria in some of these areas, notably Sarawak. As such, although currently not a major source of malaria in the global human population, it is locally important to public health and moreover, more research is needed to determine why the number of cases has been on the rise.

As for your questions about the status of malaria globally, the number of cases annually is estimated to be around 250 million. The vast majority of these are in Africa. Over 700,000 people, mainly children under five, die from malaria each year. As for whether the number of cases is increasing or decreasing, this is hard to determine. For one, a large number of cases are not reported every year, making accurate estimates difficult. Secondly, the world’s population is growing, and it is growing at the greatest rate in Africa, where the majority of malaria cases occur. As such, even if the proportion of people with malaria decreases over time, due to health initiatives such as distributing long-lasting insecticide treated bednets or free treatment, the total number of cases may still rise. Another problem we face in the fight against malaria is climate change: as the world’s patterns of rainfall and temperatures change, new areas become susceptible to malaria transmission, putting more people at risk. However, what is very encouraging is that deaths from malaria seem to be decreasing on a global scale.

Malaria No More is an organisation dedicated to eliminating deaths from malaria by the year 2015; more information about their methods and some of their success stories can be found on the Malaria No More website.

Malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa

by

QUESTION:

I live in the USA and I would like to start a business to fight mosquitoes and malaria: Can you advise me how and where to start?

ANSWER:

I take it from the subject heading of the question that you would like to focus on sub-Saharan Africa—a crucial thing to note at this stage is that malaria is serious disease that affects millions of people throughout Africa (as well as across the rest of the world’s tropical and sub-tropical regions) and as such, I would encourage you to think about ways in which you can help people fight the burden of this illness.

You also should understand that many of the people who are at greatest risk from contracting malaria also happen to live in extreme poverty; an inability to pay for diagnosis or treatment is one of the great problems affecting the sustainability of malaria control initiatives in developing countries. As such, if you plan to start a business aimed at fighting mosquitoes and malaria, you need to think carefully about the model for such an initiative; for example, do you intend to make a profit? Many organisations already work in sub-Saharan Africa as non-profit organisations (NPOs), which use fund-raising or the sale of bednets in order to provide free services elsewhere, and these types of organisations are generally better respected in terms of their motivation to eliminate the burden of malaria in impoverished communities. So, if this sounds like the type of work you would be interested in setting up, I would look at the various other organisations that are already working on the ground in sub-Saharan Africa (Malaria No More, the Malaria Consortium, and non-governmental organisation such as the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, to name a few) and see if you can find a niche where you think you can make a difference to people’s health. To gain experience, you might also consider seeing if any of these organisations accept volunteers or have job positions open, to see what working to fight malaria is really like in practice.

What is malaria?

by

QUESTION:

What is malaria?

ANSWER:

To answer your question, I have copied below the answer to an earlier post, published on the 1st of May, 2011, which also asked “What is malaria?”:

Malaria is a disease caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Transmitted by mosquitoes, there are several different kinds of malaria distributed throughout the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, causing somewhere between 300-500 million cases of disease each year, and as many as 1 million deaths. In fact, malaria is one of the biggest killers of children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa, one of the regions of the world where the burden from malaria is the highest. Malaria is usually an acute disease, manifesting itself with severe fever, chills, headache and often nausea as well. Some types of malaria can have relapsing episodes over a time period of many years.

Having said this, malaria is easily preventable, through avoiding mosquito bites by wearing appropriate clothing and sleeping under insecticide-treated bednets, or through taking preventative medication (called prophylaxis). Malaria is also treatable once symptoms appear, through ingesting safe, effective and relatively cheap drugs. With such control measures at hand, you may ask why malaria is still such a huge problem in our world; the answer is that delivering control strategies and treatment to populations most at risk is difficult, and often countries with high malaria burdens don’t have efficient and effective health systems in place to coordinate control efforts.

International non-governmental organisations such as the World Health Organisation, as well as a multitude of non-profit organisations such as the Malaria Consortium and Malaria No More, work tirelessly to bring malaria control and treatment to the places that need it most, with the aim to eradicate malaria as a disease of public health importance.

 

Malaria Statistics

by

QUESTION:

What are the statistics of malaria?

ANSWER:

If you mean the number of cases worldwide and the number of deaths, then the statistics are as follows: the World Health Organization estimates that approximately half the world’s population are at risk from malaria infection, and as a result, there are somewhere between 300 and 500 million cases of malaria every year, worldwide.

However, this may be an underestimate, since many people don’t seek help when they have malarial symptoms. The same is true of number of deaths per year from malaria – it is currently estimated that between 700,000 and 800,000 people die every year from the disease, but as with the number of cases, there may be unreported deaths as well. Organisations such as Malaria No More seek to eliminate deaths from malaria by the year 2015.

If you have more specific questions regarding the statistics of malaria, please feel free to ask!

NetGuarantee: Financing Speeds Delivery of Mosquito Nets

by

NetGuarantee, a new innovative finance facility, announces its first transaction with Zurich in North America, part of the Zurich Financial Services Group, to celebrate World Malaria Day today, April 25. This collaboration will help accelerate access to and advance the delivery of vital malaria prevention tools in Africa by six to 10 months, and shows how core business competencies and best practices can improve efficiencies in global health and save lives.

[Read more…]