First World Malaria Day to put eradication on agenda

Published on Saturday 19 April 2008 19:44

LEADING researchers and campaigners in the fight against malaria will meet next week for the first World Malaria Day, with talk moving towards eradicating the crippling disease for the first time.

The key event, attended by health ministers from the Southern African Development Community, will be in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Big funding and research initiatives are expected to be announced.

"The eradication of malaria is seriously on the agenda for the first time," said Pru Smith, a spokesperson for the Roll Back Malaria partnership.

Organisations working to combat the disease feel they may have reached a "tipping point", and that a combination of insecticide treated bednets, rapid testing and treatment can drastically reduce the rates of transmission, if the health infrastructure exists to cover all of the population.

Roll Back Malaria, a group of organisations working to combat the disease, has announced plans to "massively scale-up" activities over the next three years. By 2010 it aims to have 80% of people at risk protected, and to have 80% of patients diagnosed and treated.

Over the past two months the Roll Back Malaria Zambezi Expedition has been travelling the length of the Zambezi River in southern Africa to highlight the successes and challenges of tackling the disease. It has so far passed through Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and will arrive in Lusaka for World Malaria Day.

Malaria is the major cause of death among children in Africa, who account for the large majority of the one million people who die of the disease every year. The disease, which is now endemic in most of sub-Saharan Africa, kills 3,000 children every day.

Prudence Hamade from Mdecins Sans Frontires welcomed the new attention on malaria, but said in large areas of central and west Africa, particularly those affected by conflict, health systems are not strong enough to provide high rates of coverage.

Earlier this month, Gordon Brown said the UK would provide 20 million bednets and encourage other donors to contribute a further 100 million.

Former first minister Jack McConnell, who has been involved in the campaign against malaria in Malawi and will become the country's British high commissioner in 2009, said: "It is a preventable disease – a simple mosquito net can help protect those at greatest risk."