African Countries ​Congratulated For ​Driving Down Malaria Deaths

African countries have been congratulated for driving down malaria deaths on the continent.

The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (Alma) has presented awards of excellence to 14 African countries, including Liberia, Rwanda and Senegal for their performance in controlling malaria over the past four years, and Comoros, Guinea and Mali for showing the biggest improvements.

A further eight awards were given to countries that achieved the millennium development goal (MDG) target of halting and reversing the incidence of malaria. They were Botswana, Cape Verde, Eritrea, Namibia, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, South Africa and Swaziland.

Africa has made progress against malaria since 2000. Deaths from the disease have fallen by 66% among all age groups and by 71% among children under five. 

Alma’s executive secretary, Joy Phumaphi, said that although more effort was required to reach the ambitious goal of eradicating malaria by 2030, the countries provided hope.

“This tremendous progress shows that an end to malaria is within reach,” Phumaphi said. “And there are important lessons to learn, including the fact that those countries have not relied solely on resources from donors, but have invested domestic funds in fighting malaria, which has been absolutely critical.”

She noted innovations that helped the countries succeed, including regional partnerships that allowed countries to fight malaria together while cutting medicine costs, as well as investments in the local manufacturing of insecticide bed nets that also provided jobs.

Alma produces quarterly scorecards for each African country. The scorecards track national policies, financial contributions, the delivery of treated bed nets and medicines, and lives saved. The alliance, of which 40 African heads of state are members, plans to extend its tracking to examine progress at district and state levels.

Despite the challenges, Phumaphi said malaria prevention had the potential to create savings that could be spent on fighting other health inequalities.

“WHO have demonstrated that prevention efforts have saved an estimated $900m [$630m] in case management costs between 2001 and 2004, and that’s direct costs. Some economists have shown we can save up to $34bn a year in direct and indirect costs by eradicating malaria. That could be a massive contribution to other SDGs and ensure we succeed in other areas too.”