In MalariaWorld this week there is a reference to a blog published by the United Nations Development Programme. ‘Why it is time to rewrite Africa’s malaria story’ by Aissata De of UNDP and Dr Michael Adekunle Charles, CEO of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, makes the point that the lack of development fuels malaria.
The article opens with the point that if you woke up with severe fever, would you stay home from work? What if the choice meant losing a week’s wages, or deciding if you could afford the trip to a doctor at all? Clearly malaria, what ever its causes, has a more serious effect on people with the least. Malaria causes up to half a billion lost workdays each year and slows GDP growth by up to 1.3 percent. It accounts for half of preventable school absences, undermining learning and opportunity.
Recent analysis in Uganda found that districts with low development indicators are five times more likely to experience a high number of malaria cases. In Kapelebyong district in Uganda, malaria treatment can cost households a significant 120,000 shillings a year, often requiring long journeys to clinics facing staff and medicine shortages.
These establishment figures do promote the current activities that are not working, such as vaccines tested without placebo controls, and mosquito control. But it is promising that they are recognising that poverty, weak infrastructure, limited services, and environmental risk do not just coexist with malaria; they actively sustain it.
They call for a rethink of how malaria is tackled. I wonder would they go so far as to examine the mosquito transmission tall tale created by Ross, Grassi and others 125 years ago, and the related medical and mosquito control programmes that make so much money for Western and Chinese manufacturers and their African agents?