News Article
Original Article
Unicef Takes on Malaria as Top Priority in
Kids' Health
BYLINE: WOZA Internet (Johannesburg)
DATELINE: June 21, 2000
BYLINE: By Marjolein Harvey
Johannesburg - Fighting malaria is among Unicef's top priorities. This formidable tropical parasitic disease kills at least one million people annually - three quarters of them children, according to the Unicef website .
One of the leading causes of death among children under five, malaria kills a child every 30 seconds, or 3,000 children a day worldwide.
Also at high risk are pregnant women, non-immune travellers, refugees, displaced persons, and workers entering endemic areas.
If promptly diagnosed and adequately treated, however, malaria is curable.
This disease, which is spread through Anopheline mosquito bites, is a serious public health problem affecting between 300-500 million people a year in some 100 countries inhabited by 40% of the world's population.
Ninety per cent of the global malaria cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Two-thirds of the remaining cases occur in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
Increasing numbers of imported cases are occurring in Europe and North America.
Malaria thrives in warm, humid climates, particularly where health care systems are weak.
Malaria victims occupy as many as one out of ten hospital beds worldwide.
The disease exacts an enormous toll, not only in lives, but in medical costs, days
of labour lost, and economic output, and it undermines the growth and
development of millions of children.
According to Unicef, malaria contributes to severe anaemia in children, is a leading cause of low birth weight among infants, is a most common cause of school
absenteeism, causes severe anaemia, miscarriages, and still births among pregnant women and contributes to high rates of maternal deaths.
It also costs countries in Africa between one to five per cent of their gross
domestic product and about 10% of their expenditures on health, and is a major impediment to economic development.
Economic loss from malaria was estimated to be R12 billion in 1997 in Africa south of the Sahara.
Thousands of children's lives can be saved by simply using mosquito nets, but giving these nets to people in malaria-prone areas is not always easy.
A senior Unicef spokesperson in New York told SABC radio on Tuesday that the problem of malaria is an African problem: almost two million children die every year
on the continent from the disease.
"Unicef and the World Health Organisation are working together with governments
to make sure we have strategies that can control malaria," he says.
The first priority in the fight against malaria for children is making sure that children
who have fever are taken as early as possible for treatment at the nearest hospital.
Secondly, providing mosquito nets empowers families in poorer communities to do
something to protect pregnant women and especially children from contracting
malaria, he told SABC radio. The nets can prevent malaria deaths by as much as
25%, according to the Unicef spokesperson.
But nets are expensive for the average poor family in rural Africa - they average
between about R30 and R45, even costing up to R90 - and families need three or
four on average.
"One of the things we have been asking governments is to ensure that nets are
made available to families, and this is done by reducing taxation and tariffs on
mosquito nets and treat them like an essential health item. This can reduce the
price of the nets to about R12 to R18," he says.
DDT has a role to play in the control of malaria, but Unicef and its partners are
looking at less toxic insecticides, he says. In areas where malaria is seasonal,
spraying with DDT can save lives, he told SABC radio, adding that there are still
concerns about complications for the environment.
Past progress reversed the number of malaria cases in North America, southern
Europe, the former Soviet Union, and in some areas of Asia and South America
decreased from 350 million in 1955 to 10 million in 1969 mostly attributed to
spraying DDT inside homes and on mosquito breeding sites.
But the DDT insecticide is now legally banned in many countries because of its
harmful effects on the environment.
The problem was complicated by malaria strains that were resistant to
chloroquine, the most inexpensive and widely used antimalarial drug and some
strains of malaria have also developed a resistance to other antimalarial drugs.
Chloroquine resistance is now reported from all regions of the world with malaria.
Also contributing to the resurgence of malaria are: the displacement of
populations, global warming, roads being built, commercial tree cropping and
deforestation, creation of dams, and the opening up of new mining areas.
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