New therapy to cut malaria deaths

Uganda has launched a new combination therapy in its fight against malaria, a disease that accounts for up to 300 deaths every day and annual losses of US $690 million in the East African nation, health ministry officials said on Tuesday.

"We are moving to a treatment that is effective against malaria parasites after the disease became increasingly resistant to the available treatment of chloroquine," said Dr John Bosco Rwakimari, the malaria control programme manager in the health ministry. "We are launching the Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) today, a fixed dose combination of artemether and lumefantrine that is very effective in malaria control if used properly."

Rwakimari added that ACT would treat patients rapidly with few side-effects, and said doses of the new therapy worth over $193 million had been secured through the Global Fund on AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria to rollout the treatment for at least five years.

About 95 percent of the country suffers from perennial malaria transmission, with children suffering an average of at least six malaria episodes every year and the disease accounting for 23 percent of deaths in children under five years, according to Rwakimari.

Health minister Jim Muhwezi said in a statement to mark Africa Malaria Day on Tuesday that access to prompt malaria treatment had been improved through the government's Home Based Management of Fever Strategy, through which two volunteers in every village in Uganda have been trained to distribute the first line anti-malaria package.

"The proportion of children under five years receiving prompt and effective malaria treatment within 24 hours of fever onset has risen from 7.3 percent in 2001 to more then 60 percent," Muhwezi said. "Government expenditure in health has increased from 9 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2005."

The minister said a recent study had put the country's annual loss due to malaria at close to $700 million, which included costs like transport to a health unit or drug shop, special food requirements and money lost due to incapacitation caused by illness.

Another strategy emphasised by the government is the use of insecticide treated bed nets, which the health ministry said would reduce child deaths by 30,000 each year if all under-fives were sleeping under treated nets.

"Large scale studies have convincingly demonstrated that the use of regularly treated nets can reduce malaria transmission by up to 90 percent in infants less than 6 months [old]. Usage of insecticide treated nets can reduce mortality in children aged under five years by 20 percent while hospital admission for severe malaria will be reduced by about 40 percent," said Jennifer Kalule, of the malaria control programme in the health ministry.

Uganda's per capita expenditure on malaria every year is $24.7, a cost largely met by households. "Malaria is a major contributor to poverty in Uganda," said Rwakimari.