With Covid-19 dominating the daily news cycle, it's easy to forget the world's other great killers are continuing business as usual. With April 25 marking World Malaria Day, Leo Braack of the Malaria Consortium explains how the global fight against the disease is progressing, and why Southeast Asia has reason for optimism
In the early years of the new millennium, the headlines were heady and euphoric: Malaria cases were plummeting globally, a strong decline across all continents, with the successes backed by a trio of seemingly invincible tools.
These were a combination of long-lasting insecticide impregnated bednets, indoor residual spraying of insecticides to kill mosquitoes inside, and a new anti-malarial drug artemisinin to which no resistance was in sight.
Each year the noose tightens, the case numbers decline, and that means the reservoir for infecting mosquitoes also gets less. We are going to win this battle in Southeast Asia, it just requires the sustained commitment of national governments
Africa has always been the hardest hit and shoulders by far the major burden.
So what are the humps and bottle-necks that face malaria elimination in Asia?
Two things make Asia unique, in particular Southeast Asia. This region has managed to strongly drive down the incidence of plasmodium falciparum, the most deadly of the five parasites that cause the disease we know as malaria.
Falciparum is by far the single largest cause of deaths associated with malaria, all the other varieties causing very unpleasant illness but not the high level of mortality. But falciparum has the one major advantage that when you are treated with an effective drug, you kill all the parasites in the body, without leaving a residual population of parasites in the liver.
This article was written by Leo Braack
To read the full article, please click on the following link: https://southeastasiaglobe.com/southeast-asia-malaria-elimination/
1836.096 SRY