Do you know that
25th April is world malaria day?🦟
25th April is celebrated yearly as world malaria day.
This year’s world malaria day theme is “Time to deliver zero malaria: invest, innovate,implement”.
Thirty percent of the population cannot access essential health services, and 1.4-1.9 billion people face disastrous or impoverished health spending with significant inequities affecting the most vulnerable.
Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by a parasite transmitted to people through the bite of an infected female anopheles mosquito (WHO, 2021).
Other modes of transmission include congenitally acquired, blood transfusion, sharing of contaminated needles, organ transplantation, and nosocomial transmission.
Malaria is preventable and curable.
SYMPTOMS
Symptoms can be mild or life-threatening.
Mild : fever, chills, and headache.
Severe symptoms include fatigue, confusion, seizures, difficulty breathing, dark or bloody urine, bleeding, jaundice, and impaired consciousness.
PREVENTION OF MALARIA
Some of the preventive measures include :
♦️Vector control – this technique is recommended to protect all people at risk.
Forms of vector control:
- use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets
- outdoor residual spraying
- larvicides
♦️Antimalarial drugs -are given to those at risk.
Some populations are at considerably higher risk of contracting malaria and developing severe disease than others.
They include:
- Infants
- children under five years of age
- pregnant women
- patients with HIV/AIDS,
- non-immune migrants: mobile populations, travelers.
- rural poor
- Refugees
- religious minorities
- indigenous people
- seasonal for areas of the Sahel sub-region of Africa.
♦️Case management
♦️Intermittent prevention treatment
♦️Antimalarial to reduce transmission
♦️Vaccination: Since October 2021, WHO has advised all children residing in areas with moderate to high P. falciparum malaria transmission to get the RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine. The vaccination significantly decreased young children’s risk of dying from severe malaria.
♦️Personal protective measures :
- Use mosquito repellents (containing DEET, IR3535, or Icaridin) after dusk
- Use coils and vaporizers.
- Wear protective clothing.
- Use window screens.
WHO documented that Six hundred and nineteen thousand malaria deaths occurred in 2021, and 247 million new cases .80 percent of malaria death in Africa region were among children under the age of 5.
CHALLENGES: WHY IS MALARIA NOT YET CONTROLLED?
Countries have obstacles that make it difficult for them to stay on course and make progress toward eradication.
♦️Issues associated with wars and conflicts .
♦️absence of stable and predictable foreign and local funding in malaria-endemic zones,
♦️unusual weather patterns,
♦️the development of parasite resistance to antimalarial medicines
♦️mosquito resistance to insecticides.
♦️Poor quality of health care, especially in the low-income countries
♦️Converging humanitarian crises
♦️Covid 19 pandemic
♦️Weak surveillance system
♦️A decline in the effectiveness of core malaria fighting tools.
While progress still needs to be made in reaching “zero malaria “, in the past 20 years, malaria death has reduced by 80 percent, and malaria cases reduced.
THE WAY FORWARD
♦️Addressing the critical shortage of health workers
♦️Supply of life-saving medicine and diagnostics
♦️Provision of a functional primary healthcare system
♦️Targeted funding(invest)
♦️Step up innovations
♦️Investing in a well-functioning health system
♦️Expanding Access to malaria services for most at-risk populations
♦️Chemo-preventive strategies
♦️Implement available strategies to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria
Better targeting of malaria interventions and resources (particularly in countries where the disease strikes hardest) galvanizes progress toward the global malaria targets.
Increased funding and innovations in new tools and approaches at domestic and international levels is paramount.
Crucially, combating malaria must be integrated with broader efforts to build robust health systems based on people-centered primary health care as part of every country’s journey toward universal health coverage.
A collaborative, determined, and global effort tackling malaria’s determinants is needed to end malaria for a healthier, more equitable world for everyone today and the next generation.
By Adaobi Nwaokoye-Okoh
doctorbeyondthehospital #WorldMalariaDay #publichealth #stayinformed
