During the 18 months that Ebola was grabbing headlines, malaria was
quietly killing by the million. This is the estimate the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP)
made of the number dying in Africa from that infection during our year of Ebola
(http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7572/full/nature15535.html)
At the same time, MAP reports also
that the overall incidence of malaria fell by 40% in the period 2000 to 2015.
This was really good news, as 40% translated to a whopping 663 million clinical
infections avoided. Bed nets treated with insecticide (ITN) was the most
significant contributor to this decline in cases and deaths, MAP state. I
should say though, that my experience with the ITN has not been that
spectacular. I can testify to nightly engagements, armed with a weaponized
electronic racquet, battling mosquitoes that refuse to die after gaining entry
into my ITN. Obviously my second-line defence (chemo-prophylaxis) against the
pests is effective enough because I have not, in recent years, suffered a single
bout of the infection. But one and a half million deaths due to the infection among others in just one year is no joking matter.Any help in reducing this number, therefore, is more
than welcome, and Britain’s recently announced gift of £1 billion (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34892921) to help further the fight is
hugely important. Kudos to the Brits.
Malaria has been mankind’s implacable enemy probably ever
since man gave up his hunting and gathering ways. The infection has been intractable
not only because of its intrinsic biological sorcery but also because of
environmental and economic factors as well. So any injection of new money is to
be celebrated. The UK donation is to be added to funds provided by the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation, creating a powerful synergy that should, once
and for all, eliminate the pestilence.
Still, in 2015, one cannot
help but look back over the last century or so with something like awe, during
which, one would have expected that the billions hitherto invested, should have
yielded more ample dividends: Infection rates should be near zero by now,
surely? Perhaps billions are not enough: A recent study has concluded that total
spend remains much lower than the need. We should be looking at trillions, then?
Besides, funding, when available, may not be always targeted at where it would
do most good. Judging by the more than 2500 notifications of papers in
peer-reviewed journals that land in my inbox every year, there must be among
them, many that could be hardly fit for purpose. Obviously, a few, over the
years have yielded worthwhile results. This year, the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology
or Medicine was awarded jointly to
three researchers. Half of the prize money went to the Chinese pharmaceutical chemist,
Youyou Tu for her work in demonstrating the effectiveness of a herbal-derived
remedy, artemisinin, as highly effective therapy for malaria. This award was
more than 108 years after the prize was given to Frenchman Alphonse Laveran for
demonstrating that malaria was caused by a blood parasite, and 113 years after
the prize went to Ronald Ross, a Brit, for showing that the parasite was transmitted
to humans by the bite of mosquitoes. Incidentally, in 1899, Ross was
commissioned to find out why British soldiers in Sierra Leone were dying of
malaria in such numbers. His discovery that the mosquitoes responsible for transmission
bred in stagnant pools of water on the lowland plains around Freetown, led to
the segregation of white British workers up on a range of hills at what became
known as Hill Station. This was how, in 1904, physical racial segregation was born in
Sierra Leone. Earlier, during his Nobel Lecture in 1902, Ross had declared
of malaria: “There it strikes down, not only the indigenous barbaric population, but, with still
greater certainty, the pioneers of civilization, the planter, the trader, the
missionary, the soldier. It is therefore the principal and gigantic ally of barbarism. No wild deserts, no savage races, no geographical
difficulties have proved so inimical to civilization as this disease.” My
emphases.
But that was then and Ross has long been forgiven and is now rightly celebrated for his scientific work..
The issue now in 2015 is to find ways of eradicating malaria entirely.
Tell
Fren Tru
