GENEVA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that less than one percent of funding for health R&D investment goes to developing tools to tackle malaria, hence urging for acceleration of find new tools for malaria prevention and treatment.
A latest report from Strategic Advisory Group on Malaria Eradication (SAGme), which is composed of 13 leaders and scientists representing a range of disciplines and geographies with support from WHO, concludes that eradicating malaria would both save lives and boost economies, such as bringing the greatest health benefits to some of the world's most vulnerable populations.
The report shows that children under five account for 61 percent of all malaria deaths, while more than 90 percent of the world's 400,000 annual malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Scaling up current malaria interventions would prevent an additional two billion malaria cases and four million deaths by 2030, provided that those interventions reach 90 percent of the population in the 29 countries that account for 95 percent of the global burden.
The cost of this scale-up, according to WHO estimation, is 34 billion U.S. dollars, while the economic gain would be around 283 billion dollars in total gross domestic product.
Global malaria infection and death rates have remained virtually unchanged since 2015, WHO said, adding that the world is currently off track, as is shown in the WHO World Malaria Report in 2018, to achieve the 2030 goals set out in the WHO Global Technical Strategy for malaria 2016-2030, which aims for a 90-percent reduction in the malaria case incidence and mortality rate.
In many countries, access to health services remains a major challenge, and only one in five pregnant women living in areas of moderate to high malaria transmission in Africa is able to obtain the drugs to protect herself from malaria. Half the people at risk of malaria in Africa sleep under an insecticide-treated net and just three percent are protected by indoor spraying with insecticides, the report shows.
Advance universal health coverage and strengthening health services and delivery systems would be the highlights, WHO said, also noting the need to rethink approaches, including scaling up R&D in promising new diagnostics, medications, insecticides and vector control approaches against malaria.
"Freeing the world of malaria would be one of the greatest achievements in public health," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "With new tools and approaches we can make this vision a reality."
