Malaria: A disease out of control?

Kian 9C2

It’s official. Malaria has now been named the second most impactful disease after tuberculosis, affecting millions, or even billions, of innocent people. This deadly disease kills around one million people every year and there are few signs of major improvement in the most impacted regions. These include central and west Africa as well as south-east Asia. However, there has been a significant decline in cases in other regions, primarily due to anti-malarial therapies and medications. Malaria has ravaged countries across central Africa, with cases in Nigeria (25%), the Democratic Republic of Congo (11%), Mozambique (5%) and Uganda (4%), accounting for nearly half of all malaria cases worldwide in 2011. This just goes to show how hard-hit

Africa was by malaria, which was compounded by the severe lack of doctors. (with only four doctors to 10,000 people in Nigeria).

Malaria has heavily impacted the WHO African region, resulting in many socioeconomic and environmental consequences. This region carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden, home to around 93% of malaria cases, as well as 94% of malaria deaths. Secondly, the total funding for malaria control has estimated to be around 2.7 billion US$ in 2018, with only a mere 30% of the total amount covered by international aid. Finally, malaria has caused a massive disruption in the ecosystem. This is because one of the main prevention methods is spraying the insecticide DDT. This process is not eco-friendly at all because these chemicals bioaccumulate in the digestive systems of animals and is then biomagnified up through the food chain. This shows that not only has malaria been eradicated in most continents, but also, the situation of malaria is improving in the most impacted regions. This clearly portrays how malaria is becoming more under-control in Africa, by using preventative measures to limit its effect.

Finally, many anti-malarial therapies have been developed, resulting in a decline in malaria cases worldwide.

Since 2012, WHO has recommended seasonal malaria chemoprevention as an additional prevention strategy for countries in sub-Saharan Africa

This strategy involves the administration of monthly courses of the medication amodiaquine plus sulfadoxinepyrimethamine to all children under five years of age, during the high transmission season. This treatment method, funded by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), has been the main catalyst for the significant decrease in the total number of malaria cases in Africa. Therefore, it appears that with the benefits of foreign aid, malaria can be controlled.

In conclusion, I believe that malaria is not completely out of control, mainly because it has been resolved in most countries around the world. Although there are some exceptions where cases have remained extremely high, this implies that malaria has successfully been confined to a few regions around the world. There is no question that these regions must be provided with foreign aid to reduce the amount of deaths. Each death is significant, and we cannot afford any more loss of life to this terrible disease.

On the contrary, malaria may not actually be completely out of control. When considering the bigger picture, the disease is mainly concentrated on one continent, limiting its overall impact. Malaria is only confined to some regions of Africa and south-east Asia, and Europe, North America and Australia are almost completely malariafree. This therefore implies that malaria should not be described as completely out of control.

Subsequent research in 2018 suggests that around 50% of all people at risk of contracting malaria in Africa were protected by an insecticide-treated net, compared to 29% in 2010.