how can malaria affect our society?

by

QUESTION

how can malaria affect our society?

ANSWER

There are many ways in which malaria can potentially affect our society, and particularly people living in highly endemic areas for transmission.

Most obviously, malaria has a huge burden on health services, as sick people require diagnosis, treatment and sometimes hospital care. These days of illness prevent people from going to work or children from going to school, and this can have a knock-on effect on a society’s economy. In fact, somescientists suggest that disease is a key factor “trapping” developing countries into poverty (see Jeffrey Sach’s work on the poverty trap, for example).

High levels of absenteeism from school can hinder efforts to improve literacy rates and stall the progress of education systems. Moreover, since children are one of the highest risk groups for infection with malaria, deaths occur disproportionately in children under the age of 5, contributing significantly to many countries’ high child mortality rates; high child mortality rates often result in high fertility rates, as families seek to replace children lost to disease or other causes. This in turn can lead to a rapidly growing population, which later on can result in a workforce which is larger than the number of available jobs, leading to high youth/young adult unemployment and dissatisfaction.

However, efforts to control malaria, as well as other diseases, have also had positive impacts on many societies, through building clinics for local health care as well as training health workers in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. There is currently a huge global push to reduce the burden of malaria, and particularly to eliminate deaths from the disease by 2015, which will have enormous benefits to many societies.

Moreover, the process of international collaboration required for these initiatives can be seen to strengthen relationships between donors and recipient organisations in developing countries; these partnerships create benefits that surpass malaria control efforts alone, as they often have knock-on effects on other aspects of health care and development. As such, while malaria is undoubtedly a huge problem and a negative impact on society, by working together to control this disease the benefits to society may even outweigh the simple health improvements and cause lasting positive change.


Malaria Vaccine

by

QUESTION

For how long does this vaccine work?

ANSWER

There is not yet a commercially available vaccine against malaria. Recently, results were published (in the New England Journal of Medicine – press releases and news reports about the study are available through the main page of www.malaria.com) presenting preliminary findings of the first Phase 3 clinical trial for a vaccine, called RTS,S. The trial will not fully conclude until 2014, and so we won’t know for a few more years exactly how effective it is or for how long. The results that were just published showed only a 50% level of protection against malaria from the vaccine (in African children, most of whom also slept under bednets and generally had access to a high standard of medical care), and that value appeared to decrease over time, with protection levels after a year only about 35%. However, these early findings are still potentially promising, especially for remote areas with low access to other more immediate health care options.

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.

 

Epidemiology of Malaria

by

QUESTION:

Epidemology of malaria

ANSWER:

I’m afraid that without a bit more detail in the question, it is difficult to answer – there are many facets to the epidemiology of malaria, from the distribution of the disease globally to its prevalence in different age and risk groups among human populations. Human migration and movement can also play a large role in the epidemiology of malaria, as can mosquito vector behaviour and population dynamics.

Malaria is also known to vary widely based on climatic conditions, and there are concerns that climate change will affect what we know about the epidemiology of malaria, making it harder to control. There are also cases of cross-over between human forms of malaria and those from other primates, such as with Plasmodium knowlesi in macaques in south-east Asia. If you re-submit a more specific question, I’ll be happy to answer it more fully!

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!

Malaria Control in Developing Countries

by

QUESTION:

Should malaria be controlled in third world countries?

ANSWER:

Absolutely! Malaria is a leading cause of preventable death in many developing countries, with young children (under the age of five) at particular risk. Moreover, malaria is linked to loss of productivity, absenteeism from work/school and may even be linked to continuing cycles of poverty in areas where malaria (and other tropical diseases) are endemic. As such, malaria is implicated in at least four of the Millenium Development Goals.

Many organisations are working together with the governments of developing countries in order to combat malaria and other diseases. With widespread measures for malaria prevention (such as the distribution of long-lasting insecticide treated bednets), diagnosis and treatment, it is hoped that the burden of malaria, and especially mortality, will be reduced.

What is malaria?

by

QUESTION:

What is malaria?

ANSWER:

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 in Malaysia

by

QUESTION:

Is there malaria in Malaysia?

ANSWER:

Yes, there is malaria in Malaysia, although efficient vector control campaigns, alongside a well-functioning health system which effectively diagnoses and treats malaria cases has vastly reduced the transmission of the disease in peninsular Malaysia at least. Transmission is still a problem in rural, interior areas, and especially in Sabah and Sarawak.

The history of malaria control in Malaysia is actually something of a success story; back in 1961, there were over 240,000 reported cases of malaria across the country; this was reduced to about 40,000 cases by 1980, due to the measures mentioned briefly above, and in 2008, that number had further dropped to only about 7,000 cases a year.

The fatality rate of malaria in Malaysia is also very low, being about 0.09%, or about 50 deaths a year, which is a testament to the effectiveness of national health systems at monitoring for the disease. Having said that, Plasmodium falciparum, the most severe type of malaria, is present in Malaysia—it was this that was responsible for all the reported fatalities in 2008. As such, if you are visiting or living in rural regions of Malaysia, where malaria transmission still is relatively high, it is recommended that you take preventative measures against the disease, such as sleeping under an insecticide-treated bednet, or taking prophylactic (preventative) medicine. This latter measure is usually only worthwhile if you are visiting a malaria area for a relatively short time, as the drugs can be quite expensive.

If you have visited these rural areas, and have symptoms of malaria, such as fever and chills, within two weeks of returning, you should go to the hospital or visit a physician immediately for diagnosis. If it is malaria, the doctor will be able to provide you with the most appropriate medicine for the type of malaria that you have.

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.