Cameroon gov't. steps up efforts to tackle Malaria

By Yemti Harry Ndienla

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite, Plasmodium, which infects red blood cells. Malaria is characterized by cycles of chills, fever, pain and sweating. Historical records suggest malaria has infected humans since the beginning of mankind. The name "mal 'aria" (meaning "bad air" in Italian) was first used in English in 1740 by H. Walpole when describing the disease. The term was shortened to "malaria" in the 20th century. C. Laveran in 1880 was the first to identify the parasites in human blood. In 1889, R. Ross discovered that mosquitoes transmitted malaria. Of the four species of malaria, the most serious type is Plasmodium falciparum malaria. It can be life-threatening.

The life cycle of the parasite is complicated and involves two hosts, humans and Anopheles mosquitoes. The disease is transmitted to humans when an infected Anopheles mosquito bites a person and injects the malaria parasites (sporozoites) into the blood. Sporozoites travel through the bloodstream to the liver, mature, and eventually infect the human red blood cells. While in red blood cells, the parasites again develop until a mosquito takes a blood meal from an infected human and ingests human red blood cells containing the parasites. Then the parasites reach the Anopheles mosquito's stomach and eventually invade the mosquito salivary glands. When an Anopheles mosquito bites a human, these sporozoites complete and repeat the complex Plasmodium life cycle.

Malaria is a particular problem and a major one in areas of Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. Unless precautions are taken, anyone living in or traveling to a country where malaria is present can get the disease. Malaria occurs in about 100 countries; approximately 40% of the world population is at risk for contracting malaria.

According to WHO report, Malaria causes an average loss of 1.3% annual economic growth in countries with intense transmission. When compounded over the years, this loss has lead to substantial differences in GDP between countries with and without malaria. Malaria traps families and communities in a downward spiral of poverty, disproportionately affecting marginalized populations and poor people who cannot afford treatment or who have limited access to health care. Malaria’s direct costs include a combination of personal and public expenditures on both prevention and treatment of disease. In some countries with a very heavy malaria burden, the disease may account for as much as 40% of public health expenditure, 30-50% of inpatient admissions and up to 60% of outpatient visits. Malaria has lifelong effects through increased poverty, impaired learning and decreases attendance in schools and the workplace.

In Cameroon where malaria is coursing serious havoc the Ministry of Public Health has recently announced the availability of two new drugs believed to be capable of treating the killer disease easily and at a relatively low cost.

The country's Minister of public health Andre Mama Fouda, sounded confident that the new combinations of Artesunate and Amodiaquine or Artemether and Lumefantrine were very effective and capable of completely eradicating malaria in the country by 2010.
The medicines, he added, are available at a very low cost in all the pro-pharmacies in the country as a combination of Artesunate and Amodiaquine costs only 400 FCFA while that of Artemether and Lumefantrine costs at most 1000FCFA.
According to the minister, the new combinations make the treatment of malaria easy even at home.
To further eradicate the disease from the country, the minister made it clear that government, through the national committee for the fight against malaria, has trained about 15,550 community health workers across the country to sensitise the populations, identify cases and make sure that treatment is made affordable to those who badly need it.
While regretting that pregnant women and children below the age of five were the most vulnerable, minister Fouda, recommended a clean living environment, the proper use of insecticide-treated bed nets and regular medical check-ups as efforts that could help to prevent the deadly disease.
Despite the availability of these drugs, majority of Cameroonians depended on herbalists for treatment because they cannot afford to go to the hospital though government promised that about 80 percent of serious patients would effectively be diagnosed and given immediate treatment and follow up.
Medics have classified malaria into two types – the simple one that comes with increased temperature, constant headache, excess cold, severe pains, vomiting, stomach ache and diarrhea and the complex one that comes with very high temperatures, agitation, loss of memory, convulsion, white urine, extreme weakness, difficulties in breathing, etc.