Malaria & Children: Progress in Intervention Coverage

4 May 2009

Paul Chinnock

Source: UNICEF (see original article or PDF of full report)

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A UNICEF report summarises the data now available on the implementation of interventions intended to prevent and treat malaria in children. Most of the roughly 800,000 deaths caused by malaria each year are in African children. The disease also affects around 50 million pregnant women annually, contributing to maternal anaemia, low-birthweight babies and sometimes maternal death.

According to the report, released on World Malaria Day, the increase in the distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) has been particularly impressive. Since 2004 the number of ITNs produced worldwide has more than tripled, from 30 million to 100 million in 2008. The report shows that endemic African countries received enough nets during 2004-2008 to cover over 40% of their at-risk populations. It is calculated that 125,000 malaria deaths were averted in 10 African countries during the period 2001-2007 due to increased ITN coverage. UNICEF believes that Africa is now well on the way to achieving universal ITN coverage by 2010. Amongst the issues requiring further attention are the continuing low rates of ITN use by women during pregnancy.

The news on treatment is less encouraging. The report notes that: “Interpreting malaria treatment data from population-based household surveys can be complicated, particularly where scaling up prevention measures has substantially lowered the number of malaria cases and where diagnostics are becoming more widely available.” Nevertheless, it is clear that most African children with malaria are still being treated with older, less effective antimalarials. UNICEF says there is an urgent need to strengthen integrated community- based case management of major childhood illnesses.

The five sections of the 24-page report are: The Fight against malaria, Prevention, Treatment, Malaria during pregnancy and Impact on children’s lives. This is followed by a full presentation of demographic data and data on key malaria control indicators from disease-endemic countries. The presentation of this report, which takes an upbeat and positive view and highlights the work of UNICEF, is exceptionally clear and it provides a helpful source of data. It was compiled jointly with Roll Back Malaria, with funding provided by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Commenting on the report, UNICEF’s Executive Director Ann Veneman said: “Scaling-up effective interventions has led to declines in malaria cases and deaths at health facilities in many countries, including Eritrea, Rwanda, Zambia and Madagascar ... This has the added benefit of reducing the burden on over-stretched hospitals and clinics and having less absentees in the workplace and in school ... We are, for the first time in history, poised to make malaria a rare cause of death and disability”.