Step up war on malaria
What you need to know:
- Malaria imposes substantial costs to individuals and governments.
- The most vulnerable are persons with no or little immunity against the disease.
Malaria remains a major killer and public healthcare headache, accounting for many preventable deaths countrywide. A convergence of threats still impact malaria control in Africa: Resistance to anti-malarial drugs and insecticides, reduced performance of malaria rapid diagnostic, invasive mosquito species, wars and conflicts and epidemics such as ebola and Covid-19.
Data show African countries continue to carry a disproportionately high burden of malaria cases. The latest WHO malaria report shows that 241 million cases were reported in 2020. During the same period, 627,000 malaria deaths were reported. In Kenya, there are an estimated 3.5 million new clinical cases and 10,700 deaths every year.
Malaria imposes substantial costs to individuals and governments. The most vulnerable are persons with no or little immunity against the disease. In areas with high transmission, such as western Kenya, the most vulnerable groups are young children, who have not yet developed partial immunity to malaria, pregnant women, whose immunity is decreased by pregnancy, especially during the first and second pregnancies.
But these challenges can be lessened through innovative programmes. However, experts have found inadequate readiness by the health facilities and workers to deliver appropriate pre-referral care to children suffering from complicated malaria. Treatment guidelines revised in 2016 have not been strictly followed and should be enforced with urgency.
However, new technologies like the malaria vaccine are changing the prognosis and outcomes of the disease. In Kenya, one of the three countries (the others are Ghana and Malawi), before the rollout of the RTS,S vaccine in 2019, data from Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital show it would admit about five children a day in need of blood transfusion. But three years since, the severe cases have gone down.
The recent launch of Kemri’s locally made diagnostic kits for malaria and Covid-19 detection is a step in the right direction towards early diagnosis of the diseases.
