Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
COMOROS: The battle against malaria lies in the balance
FOMBONI, 3 December 2010 (IRIN) - On arrival in Moheli, an island in the Comoros archipelago, you have to prove that you are taking, or have taken, anti-malarial drugs, otherwise you will have to swallow a pill provided by the authorities.
The precaution is part of a three-year campaign sponsored by the governments of Comoros and China to control or even eradicate the mosquito-borne disease by eliminating the parasites that cause malaria from the population, thereby preventing transmission of the disease.
Mosquitoes feed off an infected host, ingesting the gametocyte forms of the parasite, which then transform into infectious sporozoites and are transferred to the next human hosts when the infected mosquito bites them.
In Africa the most dangerous and prevalent malarial parasite is Plasmodium falciparum. Symptoms of the disease include fevers, vomiting, diarrhoea, anaemia, convulsions and muscle spasms, and appear about 10 days, but often longer, after a human host has been infected.
Rachadj Attoumani, who is responsible for Moheli's malaria surveillance, told IRIN that there has not been "one recorded death from malaria [on the island] ... whereas before about two or three people died each month," since the campaign began in October 2007.
The main components of the project are the mass distribution of anti-malarial drugs produced by the Chinese pharmaceutical company, Artepharm, a DDT spraying campaign, and insecticide-treated nets - which now cover 90 percent of the island's beds - provided by the World Health Organization.
Moheli has about 42,000 people, of whom about 82 percent have taken anti-malarial drugs; those who have not were either not on the island, or had refused, Attoumani said.
Much more:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91276
Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN
A man waits for medical attention at the Wanani clinic in Moheli, Comoros
FOMBONI, 3 December 2010 (IRIN) - On arrival in Moheli, an island in the Comoros archipelago, you have to prove that you are taking, or have taken, anti-malarial drugs, otherwise you will have to swallow a pill provided by the authorities.
The precaution is part of a three-year campaign sponsored by the governments of Comoros and China to control or even eradicate the mosquito-borne disease by eliminating the parasites that cause malaria from the population, thereby preventing transmission of the disease.
Mosquitoes feed off an infected host, ingesting the gametocyte forms of the parasite, which then transform into infectious sporozoites and are transferred to the next human hosts when the infected mosquito bites them.
In Africa the most dangerous and prevalent malarial parasite is Plasmodium falciparum. Symptoms of the disease include fevers, vomiting, diarrhoea, anaemia, convulsions and muscle spasms, and appear about 10 days, but often longer, after a human host has been infected.
Rachadj Attoumani, who is responsible for Moheli's malaria surveillance, told IRIN that there has not been "one recorded death from malaria [on the island] ... whereas before about two or three people died each month," since the campaign began in October 2007.
The main components of the project are the mass distribution of anti-malarial drugs produced by the Chinese pharmaceutical company, Artepharm, a DDT spraying campaign, and insecticide-treated nets - which now cover 90 percent of the island's beds - provided by the World Health Organization.
Moheli has about 42,000 people, of whom about 82 percent have taken anti-malarial drugs; those who have not were either not on the island, or had refused, Attoumani said.
Much more:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91276