Malaria research offers new promise

The WHO on Monday welcomed the results of a just-published study on malaria, which, it said, could offer new hope in reducing the toll of the illness among infants. The study of 701 children in Ifakara, southern Tanzania, published in ‘The Lancet’ medical journal “opens up an exciting new possibility of reducing the impact of malaria in young children”, WHO stated. The research - supported by WHO, the UNDP and the World Bank - monitored infants who received an anti-malarial drug together with the second and third doses of diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus (DPT) vaccine, and with the measles vaccine. The intervention, which appeared to be safe in this trial, was found to cut the prevalence of severe malaria by 59 percent and associated anaemia by 50 percent, with a treatment that would cost just US 25 cents. “The results of this study open up an important way to reduce the toll of death from anaemia and malaria in infants,” WHO stated. The challenge now was to validate the research findings in other malaria-affected areas and confirm the safety of the treatment, it said. WHO estimates that there are 300 to 500 million cases of malaria worldwide every year. The malaria research it welcomed on Monday was based in Ifakara, a semi-rural area with a population of about 55,000 situated in the flood plains of the Kilombero river, southern Tanzania. In areas of high malaria transmission, such as the Kilombero Valley in southern Tanzania, about half of all malaria hospital admissions and deaths are in children younger than one year, according to the research findings in ‘The Lancet’. The well-established Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI) routinely delivered vaccinations to infants and, if there were no adverse interactions, could be used to deliver anti-malarial interventions to the target group in certain settings, it said. Efficient malaria control depended on targeting the groups at highest risk of disease and death, and a preventive rather than curative approach was appealing and would reduce the impact of people’s poor access to curative services, the report added. [for further details, go to: http://www.thelancet.com/journal]