SYDNEY: Asia accounts for 88 per cent of all malaria cases and most of the
46,000 annual deaths occurring outside Africa, a new report shows Friday as
experts demand more urgency in fighting the deadly disease.
Leading scientists and health
experts meeting in Sydney this week at the "Malaria 2012: Saving Lives in
the Asia-Pacific" conference also want tougher political leadership and
regional coordination.
Most international efforts to
defeat malaria have so far focused on Africa, where the majority of deaths
occur.
But out of the 3.3 billion people
at risk from the mosquito-borne disease, 2.5 billion live outside the African
region.
Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, director
of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, the global framework for coordinated
action against the disease, called for that to change.
"Asia accounts for the
second highest burden of malaria, second only to Africa," she said.
"In the face of persistent
economic uncertainty and profound changes in the landscape of global
development aid, the region needs strong political leadership.
"It also needs to develop
financing strategies that include substantive and sustained domestic
investment, traditional multilateral and bilateral aid and truly innovative
sources of funding."
She was speaking at the launch of
a new report, "Defeating Malaria in Asia, the Pacific, Americas, Middle
East and Europe", a joint initiative with the World Health Organization.
It showed that the parasite
threatens more than two billion people each year in the Asia-Pacific region,
while smaller numbers are at risk in the Americas (160 million) and Middle East
(250 million).
According to the report, there
were some 34 million cases of malaria outside Africa in 2010, claiming the
lives of an estimated 46,000 people.
The Asia-Pacific, which includes
20 malaria-endemic countries, accounted for 88 per cent, or 30 million, of
these cases and 91 per cent, or 42,000, of the deaths.
India, Indonesia, Pakistan,
Myanmar and Papua New Guinea were hardest hit.
Outside Asia, there were 1.1
million cases in the Americas and 1,200 deaths and 2.9 million cases in the
Middle East and the Caucasus with 3,100 deaths.
The three-day Sydney conference
focused on growing resistance to the drug used everywhere to cure the
life-threatening disease -- artemisinin, which is central to the efficacy of
anti-malarial treatment.
Resistance has been detected in
Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam and the report said it stood to
"unravel the hard-won gains of recent years".
This includes 43 malaria-endemic
countries worldwide reporting declines in malaria cases by 50 per cent or more
compared to the year 2000, according to the WHO.
The Asia-Pacific has
traditionally been the epicentre for the emergence of drug-resistant malaria
parasites, and the report said the spread of artemisinin resistance needed to
be urgently addressed.
"Anti-malarial drug
resistance is one of the greatest challenges to continued success in
controlling and eliminating malaria in the Asia-Pacific," said Robert
Newman, director of the WHO's Global Malaria Programme.
"There is an urgent need for
coordinated action against this public health threat, as called for in the
Global Plan for Artemisinin Resistance Containment.
"It will be critical to
galvanize political action and secure investments to implement an emergency
response plan for the Greater Mekong sub-region."
Despite the progress, an
estimated 216 million malaria cases still occur in the world every year and
cause around 650,000 deaths, mostly African children under five.
- AFP/ck
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