Scientists in past centuries called the sickness by the Italian phrase ”mal aria” — or ”bad air” — for the supposedly disease-bearing zephyrs wafting from swamps.
These days, scientists know malaria is spread by mosquitoes. But they describe ill winds buffeting their attempts to halt the spread of a malady that kills one million people a year, and more young African children than any other disease.
”We need to stress that the situation is bad. The number of deaths are rising, infections are rising,” said Pierre Druilhe, head of the biomedical unit at France’s Pasteur Institute.
Scientists say it could even take more than 10 years before their holy grail — a fully effective malaria vaccine — is approved for use.
”The next decade will be a very bad decade,” said Druilhe by telephone from Yaounde, Cameroon, where hundreds of malaria scientists gathered for a conference this week.
While many scientists described solid recent advancements and reason for cautious optimism, others said the news isn’t good for Africa, the continent hardest hit by the disease.
More children are becoming infected each year with the parasite that is the leading cause of death for children under five, scientists estimate. And while it has been all-but eradicated in rich lands, scientists say they’re hindered here by twin hurdles: insecticide resistance in mosquitoes and drug resistance in the parasite.
Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and causes wracking pain, fever and, if left untreated, sometimes death.
African poverty means few buyers for even relatively inexpensive insecticide-treated bed nets, so many companies shy away from producing them, scientists say. Vaccines and treatment drugs are costly.
Malaria prevention is ”in trouble,” said Brian Greenwood, a world renowned malaria researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, by telephone from Cameroon.
For Greenwood, the main rub is increased resistance to drugs, particularly the longtime mainstay, chloroquine, which is relatively cheap to produce in mass quantities.
Medical workers are turning to a new drug called artemisinin, derived from a herb indigenous to Asia.
Drawing on lessons learned treating Africa’s other main killer, HIV/Aids, they are using it in tandem with other drugs. But production is slow and expensive.
”It’s a plant that takes 18 months to grow. You can’t just say that you need 20-million doses right now,” Greenwood said.
Without chloroquine and the insecticide DDT — which helped eradicate malaria in the United States and Europe but was ultimately believed by many to cause cancer and harm the environment — anti-malaria campaigners say they’ve lost two important weapons.
”It’s pretty straightforward,” said Druilhe. ”We have today far less means to control malaria than 50 years ago.”
As for new insecticides, scientists say there are only pockets of resistance in the mosquitoes that carry malaria, not a continent-wide problem. Yet.
”If you had in one place a high level of resistance to both drugs and insecticides, it would be a disaster,” Greenwood said.
Malaria, with over a half billion infections worldwide, is a major contributor to African poverty, scientists say, cutting billions from gross domestic product while weighing on health care systems.
But not all is calamity. Scientists say they’ve identified a resurgence in public and political interest in malaria over the past decade, an upsurge they ascribe to greater media coverage and increased tourist travel in malarial countries by rich northerners.
Malaria ”has dropped into the mainstream,” Greenwood said.
Plus, scientists are increasingly banding together to study the problem — as they did this week in Cameroon — while some major philanthropists like Microsoft founder Bill Gates have donated huge amounts of money to the fight against malaria in recent years.
”The future is not favourable, but there is fortunately since a few years a revival in interest in funding, which is good news,” said Druilhe.
But Druilhe said more cash is needed.
”There’s a need for the developing countries to put some pressure on the rich countries of the north,” he said. – Sapa-AP