April 25 is marked annually as World Malaria Day, according to who.int. It was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) during the 60th session, from May 2007, to highlight the progress that has been made in the prevention and control of malaria, but also to accelerate the fight against this disease.
The theme proposed by the WHO for the 2024 edition of World Malaria Day is: “Accelerating the fight against malaria for a fairer world”. Thus, the organizers want to emphasize the social impact of this disease. “Not only does malaria continue to endanger health and life, but it also perpetuates a vicious circle of inequality. The people in the most vulnerable situations are pregnant women, newborns, children under five, refugees, migrants and indigenous peoples in the African region. According to the WHO, at the level of 2022, approximately 95% of malaria cases and most of the resulting deaths were recorded in Africa”, says who.int.
African rural areas, with the highest rates of poverty and the lowest possibilities of access to education, are the most affected by this infectious disease. Four out of five malaria cases occur in children under the age of five in the most disadvantaged areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Pregnancy reduces the mother’s immunity to malaria, increasing the risk of severe illness and death, and gender inequalities and discrimination exacerbate this risk. Untreated, malaria can cause anemia, maternal death, premature birth and low birth weight babies.
In order to prevent this dangerous trend, the WHO proposes a set of measures aimed at combating gender discrimination, promoting health education in disadvantaged areas, including prevention and treatment measures in health insurance, motivating specialized personnel to carry out the activity in areas with isolated and disadvantaged population.
A first step towards achieving these goals was taken on March 6, 2024, when the Ministers of Health from 11 of the most affected countries signed in Yaounde, Cameroon, the “Declaration to Accelerate the Reduction of Malaria Mortality in Africa”. The 11 signatory countries are: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania.
Vaccines are a solution for stopping and, finally, eradicating this disease globally. On April 20, 2021, the WHO announced that, two years after the introduction of the first malaria vaccine, approximately 650,000 children had been immunized. In early April 2023, Ghana became the first country in the world to authorize a new vaccine developed by Oxford University against malaria, which also benefits children under the age of three, Reuters reported.
On April 17, 2024, AFP reported that a new type of mosquito net distributed in sub-Saharan Africa prevented about 13 million cases of malaria and nearly 25,000 deaths in three years. The New Nets project delivered 56 million mosquito nets impregnated with two types of insecticide to 17 countries particularly affected by malaria between 2019 and 2022. The initiative was funded by UNITAID and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and was coordinated by the Innovative Vector Control Consortium. This consortium found that the new mosquito nets, coated with the new-generation Pyrol insecticide in combination with the standard Pyrethrinoid insecticide, were much more effective in controlling malaria than standard nets.
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According to WHO estimates, 608,000 deaths caused by malaria were recorded in 2022 and, in the same year, there were 249 million illnesses, who.int shows.
Between 25 and 35 cases of malaria are registered annually in Romania, all of them “imported”, mentioned, in February 2024, the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila. The minister recommended that those who travel to tropical and equatorial areas consult data from the National Institute of Public Health, from public health departments, from an epidemiologist, infectious disease specialist or family doctor to see what is needed to prevent diseases that may appear in the countries visited.
Malaria is an infectious disease, found mainly in tropical and subtropical areas. It is the most widespread disease in the world. In the absence of appropriate prevention and treatment measures, malaria can lead to death, according to cdt-babes.ro. The disease is caused by a group of protozoan parasites called “Plasmodium”. The malaria parasite is transmitted through the bite of the female anopheles mosquito.
More severe forms of malaria are manifested by fever, chills, headache, muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, cough, diarrhea and abdominal pain. Symptoms associated with organ failure can be added to these, such as acute renal failure, generalized convulsions, circulatory collapse, followed by drowsiness, coma and death, according to the website cdt-babes.ro. A study published in September 2019 by researchers in Denmark, who used national registries to identify 3,970 cases of malaria between 1994 and 2017, showed that malaria patients are about 30% more likely to suffer from heart failure. AGERPRES
