By Bernice Bessey & Pics Eric Owiredu .
The Africa Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMRN), has disclosed that despite saving an estimated 3.3 million lives from malaria, the disease still kills an estimated 627,000 people annually.
Children under five years of age in Sub-Sahara Africa, AMMRN, noted, were major casualties.The network made this observation recently in Accra at a forum to raise awareness against the deadly malaria disease. The forum which was on the theme “Accelerating Ghana’s progress towards malaria elimination” targeted journalists as a priority tool in the educational campaign against the malaria disease. The event was in preparation towards this year’s World Malaria Day which fell on April 25, 2014.
A representative from the Dodowa Health Research Centre, Dr. Alberta Amu addressing the forum said malaria elimination in the country was feasible and doable, if the government would decentralize malaria research centres to local assemblies to enable them find out the causes and management of the disease. She explained that malaria was a variety of different diseases, which occurrence differs from area to area. For instance, the Greater Accra Region has a parasite prevalence of 4.1 percent, whilst the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions have between 44 and 51.2 per cent, making it impossible to compare even the regions.
She said the effort towards the elimination of malaria was a good thing, since “it would lead to reductions in morbidity and mortality of our nationals.” The health researcher further called on politicians, development partners, media, community leaders, individuals, religious bodies, organisations and corporate institutions to fight to kick malaria out of the country. An official from the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), Madam Vivian Aubyn, briefing the gathering on “Malaria situation in Ghana and strategies for effective control,” said the country had made remarkable progress in combating the disease.
She indicated that the parasite load in children, for instance, had dropped from 75 per cent in year 2002 to 27.5 percent in 2011, as well as death reducing from 14.4% in 2000 to 0.6 in 2013. This means that in the year 2000, out of 1,000 children admitted for severe malaria, 144 of them died, but in 2013, due to progress made in malaria control, out of 1,000 children admitted for severe malaria, only six died.
“Between then and now, 138 deaths in children under five years with severe malaria have been averted. But we are not resting until we can record zero deaths from malaria,” she stated. The Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Mr. David Newton, pledged the institution would also support to eradicate malaria from the country. He stated that the institute had designed health courses onto its post-graduate programmes that would help raise awareness. Mr. Newton noted that the malaria epidemic goes beyond just treatment, but a conscious effort to awaken the mind of Ghanaians to preventive measures.