Malaria ‘700m cases’ stopped in Africa

Nearly 700 million cases of malaria have been prevented in Africa as a result of concerted efforts to tackle the disease since 2000, a study shows. The report published in the journal Nature showed that overall the number of infections fell by 50% across the continent. Bed nets were responsible for the vast majority of […]

Nearly 700 million cases of malaria have been prevented in Africa as a result of concerted efforts to tackle the disease since 2000, a study shows.
The report published in the journal Nature showed that overall the number of infections fell by 50% across the continent.
Bed nets were responsible for the vast majority of the decrease.
There have also been calls to maintain funding to ensure the progress is not undone.
The researchers from the University of Oxford analysed data from 30,000 sites in sub-Saharan Africa to estimate that 663 million cases were prevented over the past 15 years.
One of the researchers, Dr Samir Bhatt, told the BBC News website: “It’s just phenomenal.
“Just by putting in these interventions you’ve managed to save all these cases, 700 million is a huge number and that’s the reality of what happened and that’s why it’s such an optimistic message.”
But despite the progress, the job is far from done. A child still dies from malaria every minute in Africa.
The rate of improvement is also slowing – cases were falling by 9% a year up to 2011 but that has since fallen to 5%.
Dr Bhatt added: “We need to really be careful that we don’t start reducing the number of interventions and keep driving forwards. We need to keep redoubling efforts.”
Drug resistance is also a worry. Dr Bhatt describes mosquitoes being able to shrug off the effects of some insecticides as an “absolutely huge” issue in Africa.
Meanwhile, resistance to the drug artemisinin has been detected in south-east Asia and would seriously hamper efforts to control the disease if resistance spread to Africa.