Global IssuesPapua New Guinea Casts Wide Net Against Malaria
PORT MORESBY, Jul 26 (IPS) - In Papua New Guinea, a Pacific Island nation located south of the equator, 90 percent of the population is at risk of malaria and 1.9 million cases are reported every year. But, according to a recent medical study, a programme to distribute long-lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets to every district in the country has dramatically reduced malaria infections.
Rotarians Against Malaria display one of the treated mosquito nets being used around Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
The World Health Organisation (WHO) claims half the world’s population is susceptible to the infectious disease transmitted to humans by mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite, with pregnant women, young children and people living with HIV/AIDS especially vulnerable. In 2010 there were 216 million reported cases of malaria worldwide and 655,000 fatalities, representing a 25 percent drop in the mortality rate since 2000.
This progress, while still short of the global target of 50 percent mortality rate reduction, is attributed to the widespread use of insecticide treated bed nets, improved diagnosis and access to medicines.
In Papua New Guinea, which accounts for 36 percent of all confirmed malaria cases in the Western Pacific region, prevention is vital, as mosquitoes quickly adapt to greater human mobility and higher recorded temperatures.
“Malaria has always been highly endemic in all lowland areas of Papua New Guinea and higher areas up to about 1600 metres have been prone to epidemics whenever weather conditions made transmission possible, for example, a combination of slightly (increased) humidity and higher temperatures,” said Manuel Hetzel, head of the Population Health and Demography unit at the Papua New Guinean Institute of Medical Research.
The Pacific Climate Change Science Programme reports that maximum temperatures in Port Moresby have increased by 0.11 degrees Celsius per decade since 1950 and believes they could rise by 0.4-1.0 degrees Celsius by 2030. The government predicts climate change could result in 200,000 more people in highland regions being affected by malaria epidemics.
Jacob Ekinye, director of the adaptation division at the Office of Climate Change and Development (OCCD), which was established in 2010, confirmed his office was developing a national strategic response to the impact of climate change on the vector borne disease through a Sub-Technical Working Group on Malaria, comprising representatives of the OCCD, WHO and Papua New Guinean Institute of Medical Research.
In the meantime, the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), a partnership between the National Department of Health, Rotarians Against Malaria, Population Services International, OilSearch Health Foundation and the PNG Institute of Medical Research, is working to improve vector control strategies, including distribution of Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs).
An LLIN is a mosquito net treated in a factory with insecticide, which repels or kills mosquitoes that come into contact with its surface. Each net has a life span of at least three years. The nets are most effective when used at night when the main malaria carrying mosquitoes are active, thus protecting people as they sleep.
Use of LLINs is officially endorsed by WHO as a form of vector control and, therefore, malaria prevention at the community level. The health organisation claims that vector control “is the only intervention that can reduce malaria transmission from very high levels to close to zero” and suggests the most effective way to achieve widespread net protection “is through provision of free LLINs, so that everyone sleeps under an LLIN every night.”
Following the world’s first trial of insecticide treated mosquito nets in Papua New Guinea in 1986, a national distribution programme was implemented in 1989. Papua New Guinea’s success in obtaining a Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in 2004 was critical for Rotarians against Malaria (PNG), which has overseen the dissemination of 5.5 million nets in the country.
© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service