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 Launching the findings of a three-year long analysis of the global
fight against malaria, WHO experts said that while ending the
mosquito-borne disease "can be done", it's not yet possible to put a
price tag or target date on achieving eradication.
Setting unrealistic goals with unknown costs and endpoints can lead
to "frustration and backlashes", said the director of the WHO's
global malaria program, Pedro Alonso, so the world should focus
first on developing new medicines, vaccines and insecticides to get
malaria cases and deaths under control.
"With the tools that we have today, it is most unlikely that
eradication could be achieved," Alonso told reporters in a telephone
briefing. "We need to focus on getting back on track."
After a decade or so of significant declines in malaria case numbers
and deaths, latest WHO data show progress is stalling.
Malaria infected around 219 million people in 2017 and killed around
435,000 of them - the vast majority of them babies and children in
the poorest parts of Africa.
These totals are little changed from 2016, but global case numbers
had previously fallen steadily from 239 million in 2010 to 214
million in 2015, and deaths from 607,000 to around 500,000 from 2010
to 2013.
"Today, there are more countries without malaria than with (it), and
more countries than ever have fewer than 10,000 malaria cases,
putting elimination within reach," Abdourahmane Diallo of the
campaign group Roll Back Malaria said in a statement about the WHO's
report. He noted, however, that in some of the worst-hit countries,
malaria cases are increasing, showing a need "to reignite and
accelerate progress".
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A number of drugs are available to successfully treat malaria, and
insecticide-treated bednets have proved able to control mosquitoes
and infections. A partially effective vaccine - the world's first
against malaria - has been developed by the British drugmaker GSK
and is being deployed in Ghana and Malawi, with plans for rollout in
Kenya.
"TRANSFORMATIVE TOOLS"
But the WHO's malaria eradication report, a summary of which was
published on Friday, said these tools would not be sufficient to
wipe out malaria altogether.
It urged scientists and global health funders to renew a drive
towards research and development of "transformative tools and
knowledge" to control mosquitoes and create more effective vaccines
and medicines to prevent and treat the disease.
It also called for political leadership in the fight against
malaria, and for funds and data analysis to be used in the places
where it is likely to be most effective.
Currently, less than 1% of global funding for health research and
development investment goes to developing tools to tackle malaria,
it said.
"Our priority now should be to establish the foundation for a
successful future eradication effort while guarding against the risk
of failure that would lead to the waste of huge sums of money,
frustrate all those involved... and cause a lack of confidence in
the global health community's ability to ever rid the world of this
disease," the report said.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Gareth Jones and Ros Russell)
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