AFRICA: Millions saved from malaria

Rates of death from malaria have plunged by 60 percent in the past 15 years, meaning more than 6 million lives have been saved — the vast majority of them African children, according to United Nations agencies.

In a joint World Health Organization-UNICEF report, experts said that a crucial Millennium Development Goal to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria by 2015 has been met “convincingly,” with new cases of the parasitic mosquito-borne disease down by 37 percent since 2000. In 2014, 13 countries reported zero cases, and six had fewer than 10 cases.

Yet despite enormous progress, this year alone there have been an estimated 214 million new cases of malaria, with about 438,000 deaths.

A study at Oxford University found that “by far the most important intervention” in reducing malaria cases and deaths has been the use of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs). Sixty-eight percent of malaria cases prevented since 2000 were stopped by ITNs, while anti-malarial drugs called Artemisinin-based combination therapies and indoor spraying accounted for 22 percent and 10 percent of cases prevented, respectively, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

Reuters