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The director of the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Programme, Dr. Robert Newman has told HealthNewsNG the world health governing body is satisfied with the amount of work that has been done in Africa over the past ten years in the control of malaria.





In an exclusive interview, Newman said several major strides have been achieved especially in securing financial and political commitments from African states.




“I think Africa has done an amazing job over the past 10 years compared to when I first went to Africa in 1995 to where it is today in 2013, there has been several major strides. What made it possible is increase in political commitment and that was evident in the just concluded summit. There has also been increase in financial commitment. Political commitment is critical but without financial resources, nothing much could be achieved,” Newman told HealthNewsNG.




He noted that while there has been a global increase in financial commitment towards the fight against malaria, Africa has enjoyed a major part of the funds. And this has led to the scale-up of various control measures resulting in significant decline in maternal mortality.




“There has been increase in finance worldwide but most of it has been in Africa which has brought tremendous results such scale up of preventive measures such as long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets, rapid diagnostics, effective treatment with combination therapy, and the result has been impressive – 33 per cent decline in malaria mortality in Africa over the past decade,” he said.




He however noted that while current efforts are producing results as evident in decline in mortality rates across Africa, a lot still needs to be done since malaria is totally treatable and preventable.




He said: “This is great news but we should also realize that there is still a lot of work to be done for a disease that is entirely treatable and preventable.




“90 per cent of the people that die from malaria are from Africa including children under the age of 5. Those children are counting on us that the lifesaving commodities such as diagnostics and insecticide-treated mosquito nets get to everywhere they are needed.




“Another challenge is “how do we measure the impact of the interventions?” and there is also the issue of surveillance. So it’s not just about collecting data alone; it’s about collecting data, analyzing it and acting on it.




“At the local level, we need to understand what is responsible for the results we are having. If the prevalence is increasing, we need to understand why this is so – are people not taking their medicines or are the drugs not working? Or are we just having a rainy year with a lot of mosquitoes?"

http://www.healthnewsng.com/2013/07/africa-has-done-amazing-job-in-malaria.html?m=

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