The Disease - What is Malaria?
Malaria is a life-threatening parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes from person to person. When an infective mosquito bites, she transmits malaria parasites to her victim who falls ill. Other mosquitoes then pick up the parasite from the infected person and continue spreading the disease when biting other people.
 |
| Above: World malaria situation. Malaria is endemic to tropical and subtropical regions. |
|
| Source: Roll Back Malaria is a global partnership
initiated by WHO, UNDP, UNICEF and the World Bank in 1998. |
|
The first signs of malaria are usually fever, aching and headache. Malaria may also cause a variety of symptoms and as a result is easily confused with other common illnesses. Untreated malaria can lead to severe anemia, organ damage, convulsions, coma and death.
Today approximately 40% of the world's population mostly those living in the world's poorest countries is at risk of malaria. The disease was once more widespread but it was successfully eliminated from many countries with temperate climates during the mid 20th century. Today malaria is found throughout the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world and causes more than 300 million acute illnesses and at least one million deaths annually.
 |
| Anopheles mosquito on a blood meal – Malaria |
|
90% of deaths due to malaria occur in Africa south of the Sahara mostly among young children. Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds. Many children who survive an episode of severe malaria may suffer from learning impairments or brain damage. Pregnant women and their unborn children are also particularly vulnerable to malaria, which is a major cause of prenatal mortality, low birth weight and maternal anemia.
 Statistics
 In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria affects mostly young children, with almost 3,000 dying every day - 20% of all deaths in children under 5 years of age.
An estimated one million people in Africa die from malaria each year, 90% of these deaths occur in
sub-Saharan Africa.
71% of all deaths from malaria are in children under 5. A child's most vulnerable period begins at six months, when the mother's protective immunity wears off and before the infant has established its own robust immune system. Once infected a child's condition may deteriorate quickly and children can die within 48 hours after the first symptoms appear.
Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds.
300 to 500 million clinical cases of malaria are documented each year worldwide.
The majority of infections in Africa are caused by Plasmodium falciparum, the most dangerous of the four human malaria parasites.
 The Weapon to Fight Malaria
 Promoting insecticide treated bednets is one of the major breakthroughs of recent years – it is the realization that mosquito nets treated with insecticide give a much higher degree of protection against malaria. As well as stopping the bite, the net is a chemical death-trap for the mosquitoes drawn to the bait of the sleeping person. It therefore protects others living in the same house, and even in the same street or village. Properly used, insecticide treated nets can cut malaria transmission by at least 60% and child deaths by a fifth. But in 2006 very few of Africa’s children are sleeping under insecticide treated nets. It is therefore clear that much of the world is not moving at the speed required to save the lives of innocent African children. The principal problem is the gap between what bednets cost and what families can and will pay for them.
These bednets last for up to five years and kill malaria-carrying mosquitos on contact in a village hut. |
Most malaria-carrying mosquitoes bite at night. Mosquito nets, if properly used and maintained, can provide a physical barrier to hungry mosquitoes. If treated with insecticide, the effectiveness of nets is greatly improved, generating a chemical halo that extends beyond the mosquito net itself. This tends to repel or deter mosquitoes from biting or shorten the mosquito’s life span so that she cannot transmit malaria infection.
|
