Malaria treatment policy changed

United Nations agencies and the Ethiopian government are trying to raise nearly US $7 million to buy more effective malaria drugs after it was found that the disease had become resistant to medicines currently being used to treat it. "The country has commenced a drug policy change after it was found that malaria resistance to Fansidar was relatively high," Christopher White, malaria project officer with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) told IRIN by telephone from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "The government had to change very quickly to the use of Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT), which costs ten times more, and this is the reason for the appeal," White added. He said that ACT drugs needed to be available before the malaria epidemic period, which starts towards the end of the rainy season in September. This is a period when there is plenty of surface water and ground temperatures rise, creating the most favourable breeding conditions for mosquitoes. Seasonal malaria epidemics are common in Ethiopia and mostly affect the highlands where people have lower resistance to the disease compared to residents of lowlands where malaria is endemic. UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are supporting authorities in Addis Ababa in a bid to rapidly mobilise the funds under the government's Roll Back Malaria programme, an initiative to address the leading cause of death in Ethiopia. "We need to generate this $6.9 million to meet the needs in the next six months and avert any epidemic that might occur," Angela Walker of UNICEF's Ethiopia office told the UN News Service. Around 6.1 million cases and between 45,000 and 110,000 malaria-related deaths occurred during a six-month period when a major epidemic struck in 2003. Currently, some 48 million Ethiopians live in areas where they are at risk of malaria, according to the UN. Walker said Ethiopia's prolonged dry spell could exacerbate conditions and spark more cases of the disease. "When people are already weakened by drought, they don't have adequate resources and food, and they are much more likely to be infected by malaria, they are much more vulnerable," she said. While ACT therapy costs more than older treatments, trials have proved they have a higher success rate. "These drugs are much more effective in combating malaria, especially for the most vulnerable people," said Walker.