Despite progress toward preventing the spread of malaria, the world is moving too slowly toward elimination of the disease, which still claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
On the positive side, children and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa have greater access to tools that stop the transmission of malaria, according to the annual World Malaria Report. Diagnostic testing for children and preventive treatment for pregnant women have increased steeply across the region over the last five years, and the use of nets treated with insecticide has expanded rapidly.
But overall progress toward eliminating the spread of the disease is threatened by "substantial gaps" in the number of people with access to those measures, and the fragile health systems that exist in many countries, the international health agency said.
In addition, "for the last five years, global funding for malaria has flatlined," Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO's global malaria program, told reporters in a telephone briefing. "If this flat line remains, we shall not be able to achieve the ambitious goals and targets that the world has agreed upon."
Malaria, which is primarily found in sub-Saharan African and South Asia, is spread to humans by the bites of infected female mosquitoes. It causes flu-like symptoms that can lead to severe complications and death.
The international community has a target of eliminating the disease in at least 10 countries by 2020, and to reduce the number of cases and deaths globally by at least 40 percent by that date. Eighteen Asian countries have set a goal of eliminating malaria by 2030.
But in 2015, there were 212 million new cases of malaria and 429,000 deaths worldwide, according to the report, which tracks data on progress and trends in 91 countries and areas where malaria occurs.
In 2015, around half of children with a fever who sought care at a public health facility in 22 African countries received a diagnostic test for malaria, enabling providers to quickly detect the disease and prescribe life-saving treatment, nearly double the number in 2010, according to the report. And last year in 20 African nations there was a fivefold increase in the percentage of women receiving the recommended three or more doses of preventive treatment in pregnancy, the report said.
Other regions, including Southeast Asia, the Western Pacific and the Americas, also saw progress. Of 91 countries and territories with malaria transmission in 2015, 39 are estimated to have achieved a reduction of 40 percent or more in mortality rates between 2010 and 2015. And globally, malaria mortality rates are estimated to have declined by roughly two-thirds between 2000 and 2015. A further 10 countries saw no deaths from malaria in 2015.
"Those are significant achievements," said Richard Cibulskis, coordinator of the global malaria program's strategy, evidence and economics unit at the WHO. "We are, however, off track to reduce malaria incidents and mortalities by 40 percent by 2020."
Progress has lagged in countries with a high number of malaria cases and death, Cibulskis said.
"What really needs to happen is to accelerate progress in those countries," he said.
Despite the gains in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the region recorded roughly 90 percent of last year's new malaria cases and deaths. In addition, children under the age of 5 accounted for an estimated 70 percent of all malaria deaths, and the disease "remains a major killer of under-5s," the report said.
One reason for the continued transmission of malaria is the lack of protection against infected mosquitoes.
Consistent use of bed nets can reduce malaria transmissions by as much as 90 percent, according to Nothing But Nets, a global grass-roots campaign to raise awareness and funding to fight malaria.
"Bed nets are the most cost-effective proven tool to prevent against malaria," said Margaret Reilly McDonnell, campaign director for the group, which operates in 30 countries across sub-Saharan Africa.
© Los Angeles Times
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