Malaria Article (not blog!)

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Hi! This is nothing at all to do with my East African trip really. It's a report I wrote earlier this year about the (lack of?) progress being made towards the UN Millenium Development Goal Number 6 re: Malaria.

It was supposed to be an article for a journalism competition but ended up being an essay really. Anyways, now I've got somewhere I can actually publish it, I'm gonna stick it on here.

More Ethiopian-related blogging to come soon though!

Cheers,

Ben

'Malaria Death Toll 'Unacceptable'

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has branded the annual malaria death toll ‘unacceptable’, given that the disease is medically preventable and treatable. Three years on from Live 8 and renewed promises from G8 leaders to work towards the UN Millennium Development Goals, the annual malaria death toll stands at three million according to Malaria Consortium, an NGO dedicated to combating the disease.

That malaria is flourishing is yet more evidence that the Goals are unlikely to be met by their target of 2015. Goal number six aims to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria.

The World Health Organisation has a clear strategy to fight malaria, largely focusing upon spreading the use of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) and artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) as an alternative to existing drugs to which resistance has increased.

But the UN’s mid-point report of 2007 was an indictment of the failure to put policy into practise, pointing out that only five per cent of children in sub-Saharan Africa sleep under treated nets; a number a long way short of the target of 60 per cent by 2005 which 44 African states agreed to work towards in The Abuja Declaration of 2000.

However it is not only African governments failing to follow through with their own aid pledges. Britain’s global development contribution currently stand at 0.36 per cent of gross national income - far from the 0.7 per cent target agreed by aid donors in 1970 and which G8 leaders promised to work towards with increased vigour at Gleneagles. Only Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have so far met the 1970 target.

The lack of substantial action which appears to follow aid pledges from both developing and developed nations contradicts the WHO’s call for predictable aid financing, needed to ease the supply of malaria drugs and commodities. At Abuja, African governments pledged to cut or waive tariffs on malaria control goods and services, yet high taxes continue to exist in a number of countries.

On top of aid issues, anxiety over the impact of counterfeit antimalarials continues to grow. Andrew Jackson, Deputy Global Head & Executive Director of General Security at pharmaceutical giant Novartis, says the problem is ‘on the increase’. However, he denies claims that drug companies avoid publicising the issue for fear of ‘damaging public confidence in medicines’, as suggested in the British Medical Journal in 2002.

A raid on counterfeiters in China earlier this year discovered fake ACTs which contained doses of artesunate (a water-soluble derivative of artemisinin) too low to be efficacious, yet high enough to enable malaria parasites to develop a resistance to this drug class. Doctor Paul Newton of the Wellcome Trust, who were involved in the investigation, stresses that given the crucial role ACTs play in anti-malaria strategy, a successful market in these fakes could prove ‘catastrophic’ for public health in the tropics.

Jackson, meanwhile, insists that Novartis ‘devote many resources’ to this issue which they take ‘extremely seriously’, but asserts that that responsibility must lie ultimately with local Governments, some of which refuse to recognise counterfeiting as a crime.

But there is hope. Malaria Consortium’s AFFORD project has successfully increased ITN and ACT coverage in Uganda through both public and commercial sector strategies, providing a positive example of what changes some NGOs are able to affect. Meanwhile UNICEF’s Executive Director Ann Veneman recently expressed a belief that ITN coverage will soon see a rapid increase given recent surges in funding and pointed to the millions of nets distributed in Ethiopia and Kenya as proof that some countries are addressing the issue.

Westminster too appears to recognise that renewed determination and innovation will be necessary if hopes of keeping Britain’s end of the international development bargain are to be realised. In November an All Party Parliamentary Committee proposed the imposition of a 0.005 per cent stamp duty on all sterling foreign exchange transactions in order to provide additional revenue ‘to help bridge the significant funding gap required to meet the Millennium Development Goals’.

The cost of malaria in Africa is estimated at approximately $12 billion per year in lost GDP, a statistic which illustrates how drastically failure in one Millennium Development Goal can impact upon other targets.

Last July Gordon Brown challenged the world to ensure that they were not remembered as ‘the generation that betrayed promises rather than honoured them’. On malaria at least, both African governments and the G8 nations need to improve their promise keeping, if the Prime Minister’s challenge is to be met.

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