The World Health Organization on Thursday warned the number of deaths caused by malaria in sub-Saharan Africa could reach 769,000, twice the number of deaths reported in the region in 2018, as the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the efforts being carried out to tackle the disease, reported Reuters.
As of Thursday, the region had registered more than 25,000 cases of COVID-19, the deadly respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. Some 7,000 people have recovered so far from the virus, while almost 1,250 have lost their lives. The governments are currently working with partners such as the WHO to control the pandemic.
WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti urged all countries to ensure essential malaria control services continue even amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“A recent analysis has found that if insecticide-treated bed net distribution stops and case management reduces, malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa could double in comparison to 2018,” Moeti said at a briefing. “This would be the highest number of deaths seen in the region since the year 2000.”
The WHO official pointed out the statistics from Africa’s ebola outbreak that showed that more people died of other diseases, including malaria, than from ebola itself, due to unavailability of treatment. She urged the African countries not to repeat that again with COVID-19.
The WHO said if the focus on curbing the spread of the new coronavirus leads to a 75 percent reduction in access to anti-malaria medicines, deaths could double to 769,000.
The UN health agency said all nations on the continent should follow Benin, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and Chad, the countries that have all initiated anti-malaria programmes during the pandemic.
According to the World Malaria Report 2019, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for approximately 93% of all the world’s malaria cases and 94% of deaths in 2018. More than two-thirds of deaths were among children under the age of five.
