An international partnership of more than 90 organizations and countries to reduce global deaths from malaria has failed to control the disease and may have done more harm than good, The Lancet medical journal said on Friday.
The Roll Back Malaria partnership (RBM), which includes the World Health Organization and World Bank, was set up seven years ago to coordinate the fight against a disease that kills more than a million people each year – most of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Lancet said the RBM was ineffective and that rates of infection and deaths from the disease had actually risen since it pledged to cut them at a summit in Abuja, Nigeria in 2000.
– Five years on from the Abuja Summit, it is clear that not only has RBM failed in its aims, but it may also have caused harm, the journal said in an editorial ahead of Africa Malaria Day on Monday (April 25).
– In the 7 years since its inception, malaria rates have increased and the organization has accumulated an expansive list of missed opportunities and dismal failures. The 2010 target to halve malaria deaths now looks unreachable…, the journal added.
Awa Marie Coll-Seck, the executive secretary of the RBM, described the editorial as unfair but admitted much work remains to be done.
– I did not see anything in the article showing people are failing,” she said adding: – We need more financial support for countries, more technical support and help for capacity building. We have a lot of things to do but really, things are moving.
The World Malaria report, which will give details on the battle against malaria, is due to be released in May.
Malaria kills one million people every year. Most of its victims are under five. The journal suggests that technical advice from the WHO was inadequate and was sometimes conflicting, according to an internal assessment, because of the lack of clear division of responsibility among partners.
– For any sort of progress to be made…the RBM partnership needs strong leadership and a clear signal from all its partners that malaria is a priority. Without this commitment, the history of RBM will become a calamitous tale of missed opportunities, squandered funds and wasted political will, the Lancet claimed.
The partnership does not deny the Lancet claims, but argues that progress was made in the past year.
Further, the Lancet article contains evidence about how the infectious disease, which is carried by mosquitoes, is becoming drug resistant.
The parasite responsible for the most severe form of malaria has become resistant to the drug chloroquine (klorokin) in nearly all areas were the disease is rife – 90 percent of cases are in Africa. A study of 1.800 children in Tanzania found a combination of two drugs – artemether and lumefantrine – was the most effective way to treat the disease in such cases.
But Theonest Mutabingwa, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: – The cost of the drug means that it is likely to reach only a fraction of those who need it.
And colleagues at the school predicted it would be 10 years before a vaccine came on to the market. While research had progressed rapidly in recent years, vaccines currently being tested only offered 30 percent protection.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
