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Adewale Sanyaolu
As the global community marks World Malaria Day today, Nigeria and other countries, especially in Africa and prone to malaria are to record about 800,000 deaths in 2020, a World Health Organisation (WHO) new modeling study has suggested.
The WHO study hinged the 800,000 deaths to the severe disruptions to insecticide-treated net campaigns and lack of access to antimalarial medicines due to COVID-19 could lead to a doubling of the 2019 malaria deaths of 400,000.
According to last year’s World Malaria Report, approximately 400,000 people died from malaria, the lowest level ever in almost 20 years.
But to stem the WHO death prediction for 2020, the RBM partnership to end malaria has called on countries to act now to save additional lives from malaria death as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The RBM partnership to end malaria, along with global and regional partners, including WHO and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, urged leaders of malaria affected countries to take advantage of the critical window of opportunity they now have, before the rainy season, to save lives and prevent over-burdening health systems.
Chief Executive Officer of the RBM partnership to end malaria, Abdourahmane Diallo, said countries have been urged to ‘move quickly’ because the ongoing pandemic places extra burden on low-resourced health systems, particularly in Africa, which carries 90 per cent of the global malaria burden, as well as parts of Asia and Latin America, adding that the malaria community is calling for these countries to safely continue life-saving malaria interventions that accelerate diagnosis and treatment at the community level.
With the theme ‘Zero Malaria Starts with Me’, this year’s World Malaria Day reaffirms that it is everyone’s power and responsibility – no matter where they live – to ensure no one dies from a mosquito bite.
