Malaria Deaths Fell Dramatically since 2000

Posted Dezembro 10, 2014

The number of people killed by malaria fell sharply since 2000, says the World Health Organization. From VOA:

Sub-Saharan Africa bears the brunt of malaria, with 90 percent of global deaths occurring there.

But this year’s World Malaria Report says Africa’s population has grown by 43 percent since 2000, with fewer people getting infected.

WHO Global Malaria Program Director Pedro Alonso says the number of people infected fell from 173 million in 2000 to 128 million in 2013. He says that is particularly good news for children, who are the biggest victims of this fatal, but preventable disease.

“Mortality in children under five, the age group, which concentrates the biggest malaria problem in terms of severe disease and death, has reduced by a staggering 58 percent,” he said. “And, if we try to quantify the number of lives saved since 2000 up to 2014, we estimate that over four million deaths have been averted.”

The World Health Organization says the results are due to greater access to malaria-control interventions. It notes in 2013, almost half the people at risk of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa had access to an insecticide-treated mosquito net. It says a record 214 million bed nets will be delivered to malaria-endemic countries in Africa by the end of the year.

Alonso says greater access to rapid diagnostic tests and effective treatment also has significantly improved. He says these are not complex, expensive interventions and health systems can build on these measures.

“We also need to sustain a strong pipeline of research and development and innovation to develop new tools,” he said. “We face significant challenges … with the emergence and spread of artemisinin resistance, particularly in Southeast Asia. We need to tackle that problem and we can tackle it in bold ways … by developing new drugs that could potentially take over from ACTs [Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy] if and when they fail that resistance spreads.”

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Global Health and Development Beat

Marginalised communities and civil society groups helping them are warning of a “tragedy” in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) as international funding for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis programs in the regions is cut back.

A senior United Nations official says an upsurge in the transmission of the deadly Ebola virus in western Sierra Leone and northern Guinea requires a more intense international response to halt the spread of this fatal disease.

The World Food Programme has resumed its program providing food vouchers to Syrian refugees in five countries, following a week of massive fundraising.

Jordan is straining under the weight of its over 600,000 Syrian refugees, with government officials and aid agencies warning of dwindling resources and capacity to respond to the ever-growing needs.

As unemployment deepens across this Southern African nation and as the country battles to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of the December 2015 deadline, thousands of urban Zimbabweans here are facing starvation.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, expressing deep concern about slow action to combat climate change, told governments at U.N. talks in Lima on Tuesday there was no “time for tinkering” and urged a radical shift to greener economies.

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Spotlight on PSI

Three of PSI ambassadors took a stand for the holiday season:

You’re either a selfie-taker or a selfie-hater. Today, we can all find common ground with the unselfie.

The unselfie movement is tied to #GivingTuesday and the holiday season, when most nonprofit see significant spikes in donations. The unselfie – unselfish selfie – is a photo with a caption explaining why you support a particular cause.

Why don’t you join the movement as well this holiday season? Take a stand; take an unselfie for PSI. You’ll be joining the likes of Ashley Judd, Mandy Moore and Debra Messing!

Ashley Judd has visited the slums, brothels, schools and clinics that PSI programs target in Thailand, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Rwanda and South Africa. Her visits bring light to the devastating effects of poverty, social injustice and gender inequality. Find out more about Ashley’s involvement with PSI.

Mandy Moore has visited PSI’s child health programs in South Sudan, Central African Republic and Cameroon. With her visits, she has raised awareness about PSI’s at-home water treatment solutions and nationwide net distribution campaigns for malaria. Find out more about Mandy’s involvement with PSI.

Debra Messing has visited PSI’s HIV prevention programs in Zimbabwe and Zambia, visiting testing and counseling centers, male circumcision clinics, warehouse facilities and support groups for HIV positive people. With her visits, she has brought attention to progress being made against the epidemic. Find out more about Debra’s involvement with PSI.

Go here to see their unselfies and learn how to post your own.

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Buzzing in the Blogs

Private drug sellers are popular in many developing countries, but the lack of regulations mean available medicines have often included counterfeit, substandard, and expired drugs, and lack of training and knowledge has made diagnosis and treatment unreliable, says the Gates Foundation blog. A new post delves into a promising example of working with such sellers in Tanzania. An excerpt:

Recognizing the extent of the problem with drug sellers in Tanzania, in 2001 the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) began to work to address this challenge. With 9,226 local retail drugs shops in Tanzania these outlets represented the largest retail source of medicines in in the country.[4] However, an assessment[5] showed that a quarter of these shops illegally sold unapproved or prescription-only drugs, such as broad-spectrum antibiotics, including some that were counterfeit or of substandard quality.

It was in this context that the Tanzanian government and the non-profit organization, Management Sciences for Health (MSH) – with support from the Gates Foundation – launched the Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlet (ADDO) Program. This program aimed to improve access to affordable, quality medicines and pharmaceutical services in retail drug outlets in areas where few or no registered pharmacies existed. The ADDO Program took a holistic approach to upgrading private drug shops that combined training, accreditation, business incentives, and regulatory enforcement with efforts to increase consumer demand for quality products and services.

After a successful pilot in the Ruvuma region from 2003-2005, the ADDO Program was rolled out in additional districts with the support of the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) and later the Pharmacy Council of Tanzania. Today, more than two thirds of Tanzania’s informal drug shops had been upgraded and accredited, with an average of thirty upgraded shops per district.[6]

These upgrades represent real changes in quality of care – and thus, real improvements in health outcomes for the poor in Tanzania. The percentage of accredited shops selling unapproved drugs dropped from 26% to zero, and 99% of drugs passed quality testing.[7] In addition, the proportion of drug dispensers recommending incorrect medicines dropped from 39% to 14%.[8]

Applying utilization rates from a 2008 survey to today’s numbers shows that Tanzania’s 6,412 accredited shops have approximately 7.6 million case visits every year.⁴ The ADDO Program has increased the availability of quality medicines to underserved populations in Tanzania. Care management in ADDOs has also improved, particularly related to malaria and pneumonia.^8,[9] These successes have improved care and medicine quality for thousands of patients in Tanzania that use these drug shops as their source of primary care.