PHM-Exch> Worldwide malaria deaths may be almost twice as high as previously estimated, a study reports.

[Claudio Schuftan]

*Worldwide malaria deaths may be almost twice as high as previously
estimated, a study reports.*

The research, published in the British medical journal the
Lancet<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2960167-6/abstract>,
suggest 1.24 million people died from the mosquito-borne disease in 2010.

This compares to a World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate for 2010 of
655,000 deaths.

But both the new study and WHO indicate global death rates are now falling.

The research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It used
new data and new computer modelling to build a historical database for
malaria between 1980 and 2010.

The conclusion was that worldwide deaths had risen from 995,000 in 1980 to
a peak of 1.82 million in 2004, before falling to 1.24 million in 2010.

The rise in malaria deaths up to 2004 is attributed to a growth in
populations at risk of malaria, while the decline since 2004 is attributed
to "a rapid scaling up of malaria control in Africa", supported by
international donors.

While most deaths were among young children and in Africa, the researchers
noted a higher proportion of deaths among older children and adults than
previously estimated. In total, 433,000 more deaths occurred among children
over five and adults in 2010 than in the WHO estimate.

People exposed to malaria as children supposedly develop immunity and
rarely die from malaria as adults. What was found in hospital records,
death records, surveys and other sources shows this just is not the case.

The researchers also concluded malaria eradication was not a possibility in
the short-term.

They estimated that if decreases from the peak year of 2004 continue,
malaria mortality will decrease to less than 100,000 deaths only after 2020.

Disturbing numbers

We don't actually have any reliable primary numbers for malaria deaths in
some of the most malarious regions of the world, so what numbers we have
come from estimates.

The underlying message of the report is that the disease can and is being
controlled.

Since 2004, the number of malaria deaths has dropped by about a third, and
that's really been the time when the Global Fund to Fight Aids,
Tuberculosis and Malaria has swung into action.

Over the past decade, 230 million cases of malaria have been treated and
the same number of bed nets have been distributed to people at risk of
malaria, and the result of that has been this huge downturn. So what we
know is that we're actually able to turn off malaria with our existing
interventions.

The introduction of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria, recommended by  WHO
in 2010 and increasingly available in endemic countries, affords an
unprecedented opportunity to take the guesswork out of malaria diagnosis
and to improve the reliability of information.

The work also involved trying to judge the impact of the misclassification
of deaths in the affected regions. This readjustment alone generated a rise
of 21% in the number of malaria deaths.
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