Malaria kills a child every 60 seconds in Africa

In commemoration of World Malaria Day today, Goodbye Malaria has called on government, businesses, and non-profit organisations to work together to eliminate the disease in Southern Africa by 2030.

 

Malaria is a preventable and curable disease. However, despite the tremendous progress made to curb it in Africa, it still kills a child every 60 seconds.

 

The mosquito-borne infection costs Africa around $12b (around R230b) annually.

 

In places where infections are recurring, up to 60% of schoolchildren have impaired learning ability, says Goodbye Malaria’s CEO Sherwin Charles.

 

South Africa had more than 7 800 malaria cases last year. Although community transmission is low, an outbreak could put nearly five million people in KZN, Limpopo and Mpumalanga at risk of getting the disease.

 

Bringing malaria risk to zero will not happen without co-ordinated malaria control efforts between South Africa, Eswatini and Mozambique (the Mosaswa region), says Charles.

 

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, investment in malaria control falls short of the $7.8b (around R149b) needed to stay on target to eliminate it by 2030. This has prompted African social benefit organisations to build cross-sectoral networks to take on malaria in southern Africa. 

 

 

Goodbye Malaria has fought the disease in the Mosaswa region for over a decade. Its elimination campaigns, including using eight mobile units for testing and treatment at key border posts in South Africa and awareness drives, kept more than four million people in the region malaria-free in 2023. A form of vector control called indoor residual spray (IRS) is also key to its success. Vector control is an intervention that stops the disease from spreading from carrier mosquitoes to humans.

 

“To eliminate malaria, you need to halt local transmission in a community,” says Charles.

 

He explains that only when local transmission has stopped for three years will an area be declared malaria-free.

 

“We are not winning the war against this disease. Malaria is having a devastating effect, particularly on children on the continent. Protecting them from it needs to become a way of life,” says Charles.

 

Understanding malaria mechanisms

 

This life-threatening disease spreads to humans through specific types of mosquitoes that are infected by parasites in tropical countries.

 

Early signs of malaria are fever, headaches, and chills within the first 10-15 days of being bitten by an infected mosquito.

 

These symptoms are difficult to recognise as malaria and they can become severe or lead to death within 24 hours. This makes prevention tools essential to fight malaria – particularly in areas that do not have public health infrastructure.

 

Why prevention is paramount

 

Strategies to end malaria need to be comprehensive. Malaria nets alone will not prevent all infections because mosquitoes can bite people before they are under one, says Charles. Medications also aren’t perfect because ‘more drug-resistant kinds of malaria are emerging and they just don’t respond to treatment’, he adds.

When used together, insecticide-treated nets, medication and IRS can improve efforts to control the disease.

 

Goodbye Malaria deploys teams of trained professionals to spray insecticide approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in homes located in high-transmission areas. The goal is for malaria-spreading mosquitoes to die when they land on surfaces in the home.

 

A co-ordinated effort

 

Malaria vaccines are another valuable tool to curb the disease because they are effective at preparing children for the worst symptoms, says Charles.

 

Both RTS and R21 jabs significantly reduce severe malaria and death among young children. However, the WHO estimates that at least 60 million doses of malaria vaccine will be needed in Africa by 2026.

 

“You can’t work in silos to solve this problem,” says Charles. In his view, suppressing malaria means you need ‘partners who are willing to do the hard work’.

 

Even though Africa avoided almost 10 million malaria deaths over the past two decades, Charles says more collaborative approaches across government, business and non-profit sectors are needed to end the disease.

 

As such, Goodbye Malaria establishes partnerships with various companies to do this. “Partnerships present opportunities to make a significant impact in the fight against malaria, allowing us to move faster, together,” says Charles. “It’s the only way we’re going to win the war.

 

“Ending malaria not only saves lives, it unlocks human potential. Malaria is a disease of poverty and results in poverty. By investing in prevention and elimination, we are investing in healthier and more prosperous societies,” he adds.