NEWS: Religious leaders targeted to end malaria deaths

Religious leaders targeted to end malaria deaths

Sunday, April 26, 2009 from MONITOR ONLINE

Withthe fight against malaria still elusive in several countries including Uganda, religious leaders have now become a new target to try and combat the disease.The UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for Malaria, Mr Ray Chambers on April 24 hosted a cross section of religious leaders from around the world in Washington DC, where the new campaign dubbed “One World Against Malaria” was launched.The campaign will engage faith-based institutions, working in partnership with governments and the private sector to cover every African with a bed net by 2010.Mr Chambers said that although malaria cases in Africa are declining largely because of increased access to insecticide treated nets, more effort needed to be put in place to combat the disease.In his annual report to UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-Moon, Mr Chambers said more than 40 per cent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa now has access to long lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets compared to less than 10 percent in 2005. "At this moment, we can point to definite indicators of progress,'' the report reads in part. Uganda is one of the countries in Africa currently benefiting from a $3b UN Global Action Plan to reduce deaths from malaria to near zero by 2015. Malaria kills close to 300 people daily in Uganda, mostly children less than five years of age and pregnant women. According to the Ministry of Health, at least 25 per cent of Ugandan households spend their income treating malaria.Mr Ki-Moon has set December 31 2010 as the deadline to provide all malaria endemic countries essential interventions to control the disease including long lasting insecticide treated nets, indoor residual spraying and providing anti-malarial drugs like artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) – and intermittent preventive treatment among pregnant women. In the last three years, according to the report, more than 140 million mosquito nets have been distributed to nearly 300 million people in malaria endemic countries in Africa. "With over 240 million mosquito nets already financed for delivery between now and December 2010, attention has focused on reinforcing management structures within these countries,'' Chambers added. He however stressed that while malaria reduction objectives are within sight, a failure to increase momentum further may result in falling short of the targets that have been set. "The possibility of realising this scenario by 2015 arises not from aspiration, but from accounts of rapid intervention-induced declines in malaria deaths in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe and other countries. The Tanzanian island of Zanzibar already has reduced deaths to near zero. In Zambia, malaria parasite prevalence in children has lowered by 50 per cent. These examples demonstrate rather powerfully the promise of our mission,'' he said in his report.