Malaria knows no borders, everyone in the region is at risk

Mother and child sleeping under a mosquito net, to prevent Malaria. Ending malaria requires regional governments to enhance the capacity of institutions to comprehensively deal with the disease

It is estimated that each year, mosquitoes are responsible for nearly one million deaths globally, with malaria — the major culprit — causing over 600,000 deaths in 2020.

For a country to successfully eliminate malaria — and then prevent reintroduction of the disease — cases coming from neighbouring countries must be detected, tracked, and treated immediately to prevent ongoing local transmission of the parasites. That is a difficult task in Eastern Africa, where malaria is endemic and national borders are open due to our regional economic community; the East African Community.

Infections are even harder to track and treat in regions where many people are considered mobile or migrant and live in rural, hard-to-reach areas. Malaria knows no borders, increased regional collaboration is the pathway towards malaria elimination.

Kenya and Uganda are the second East African countries to launch cross-border malaria control and prevention initiatives, under the auspices of the Great Lakes Malaria Initiative.

Drawing from the Covid-19 lessons, to eradicate the world’s oldest and deadliest disease will require much more than a single actor or country but a combined effort spanning through international, regional, cross-border and country-specific efforts. Developing, implementing, and sustaining gains from regional and cross-border collaboration have been seen to succeed with anchorage around a common political and economic body/force that also acts as a possible avenue for effective resource mobilisation.

Lilies Njanga, the Malaria No More UK Africa director, rightly observes, ‘‘the concurrence of both the governments is crucial in order to synchronise the vector control and patient management activities, including distribution of bed nets and others activities. Ending malaria requires regional governments to enhance the capacity of institutions to comprehensively deal with the disease as well as integrate economic and social interests.’’

A large portion of the malaria burden is driven by difficult-to-reach communities and migrant populations living in border areas. Cross-border malaria is a recurrent issue due to free movement, weak health delivery systems, and lack of coordination along the border districts in malaria elimination countries.

Support to sustainable coordinated regional cross-border initiatives is needed to speed up reductions of malaria cases and deaths and accelerate malaria elimination in the countries and sub-regions. Focusing on cross-border malaria elimination is a pre-requisite and priority not only to achieve the 2030 malaria elimination target but also for sustaining it beyond 2030 in the East-Africa region.

History proves that continued commitment and investment in malaria elimination pays dividends. Since 2000, global progress has saved seven million lives and prevented more than one billion cases of malaria, enabling millions of children to stay in school, parents to work, and economies to grow.

2022 is a crucial year of action in the fight against malaria. In October, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria calls on all countries to pledge in funding for these diseases.

Accounting for about 60 percent of funding for anti-malaria programmes worldwide, the importance of reaching this target cannot be overestimated.

Source: www.theeastafrican.co.ke