Scaling up impact of malaria control programmes: a tale of events in Sub-Saharan Africa and People’s Republic of China

Abstract

This review aims at providing synthetic information with scientific evidence on the trends in the malaria events from 1960 to 2011, with the hope that it will help policy makers to take informed decisions on public health issues and intervention designs on malaria control towards elimination in both Sub-Sahara Africa and in the People’s Republic of China by highlighting the achievements, progress and challenges in research on moving malaria from epidemic status towards elimination. Our findings showed that since 1960, malaria control programmes in most countries have been disjointed and not harmonized. Interestingly, during the last decade, the causal factors of the unprecedented and substantial decline in malaria morbidity and mortality rates in most vulnerable groups in these endemic areas are multifaceted, including not only the spread of malaria and its related effects but also political and financial willingness, commitment and funding by governments and international donors. The benefits of scaling up the impact of malaria coverage interventions, improvement of health system approaches and sustained commitment of stakeholders are highlighted, although considerable efforts are still necessary in Sub-Sahara Africa. Furthermore, novel integrated control strategies aiming at moving malaria from epidemic status to control towards elimination, require solid research priorities both for sustainability of the most efficient existing tools and intervention coverage, and in gaining more insights in the understanding of the epidemiology, pathogenesis, vector dynamics, and socioeconomic aspects of the disease. In conclusion, political commitment and financial investment of stakeholders in sustaining the scaling up impact of malaria control interventions, networking between African and Chinese scientists, and their Western partners are urgently needed in upholding the recent gains, and in translating lessons learnt from the Chinese malaria control achievements and successes into practical interventions in malaria endemic countries in Africa and elsewhere.

Dynamics of Plasmodium falciparium and Plasmodium vivaxin a micro-ecological setting, Southwest Ethiopia: effects of altitude and proximity to a dam

“…Such persistent increment of the episodes of P. falciparium could possibly be due to resistance development by malaria vector mosquitoes to insecticides that had been in use for indoor residual spraying (IRS) in the country for about half of a century until vector resistance to DDT was detected in 2007 [53]-[55]. The noticed decline of P. falciparium malaria episodes after 2010 could possibly be due to the replacement of old LLINs in 2009, and shifting of insecticide used for IRS in 2010 to deltamethrin or bendiocarb insecticides [53], such coincidence of interventions followed by a sharp drop of malaria episodes, had also been reported by other studies [56]-[61] whereas weakened interventions and development of resistances of the vector to insecticides and the parasite to drugs have been documented to associate with the resurgence of the diseases [62]. …”

Elimination of malaria due to Plasmodium vivax in central part of the People’s Republic of China: analysis and prediction based on modelling

“…Thirdly, implementation of real-time surveillance and effective response system targeting vulnerable environments and populations must be explosed . Fourthly, capacity building aimed at sustaining current treatment teams are necessary (Tambo et al, 2012).…”

Combating infectious diseases of poverty: a year on

“…During the past year, four articles reported on disease burden by measuring impact of diseases at local, national and global levels [12,15,19,22], three articles described how to measure the ability of the health systems to predict, prevent and deal with disease outbreaks and to deliver effective interventions [11,12,14]; two articles dealt with the government commitment to tackle the problems on infectious diseases of poverty [23,24]; and three articles focused on socioeconomic factors to measure determinants of health [17,25,26]. …”