[Africa] countries fight malaria, Burundi ahead of rest

from Reuters Alert Net

By Jack Kimball

BUJUMBURA, April 25 (Reuters) - Four-year old Jonathan Hitamwoniza wails as his index finger is pricked in a local health clinic in Burundi's capital.

A rapid test shows that he has malaria -- for the third time in his short life.

"I didn't see a problem, because he was sleeping under the nets. I don't see why he's sick," his mother Mazoya said.

She adds that even though her children sleep under mosquito nets, all four have had malaria.

More than one million people die from malaria every year, almost 90 percent are in Africa. The disease is most deadly for children under five, killing one child every 30 seconds.

As the continent celebrates Africa Malaria Day on Tuesday, activists say Burundi is one of the few countries making strides in combating the disease thanks to money from the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Out of a population of seven million, Burundi had 1.9 million cases of malaria last year, compared to the 3.1 million cases in 2000, according to the health ministry.

"The impact we're feeling is due to the Global Fund money," Dr Francoise Ndayishimiye, who coordinates Global Fund activity for civil society, told reporters on a trip to Burundi, seen as a model of success in the fight against Malaria.

The Global Fund, launched in 2002, makes up about two thirds of worldwide financing to prevent and treat malaria, and is the main financier of developing countries' scale-up of artemisinin-based combination drugs -- known as ACTs.

Its executive board meets this week to decide on whether to launch a sixth round of grants in what observers say is a key juncture for the young development financier as it decides its future size and ambition.

EMACIATED CHILDREN

Green nets encircle mother and child in the paediatric ward of Cibitoke hospital, 60 km from the capital.

Thin, clear intravenous lines (IVs) run along the nets entering the arms of emaciated children who have come down with severe cases of malaria.

Head nurse Alice Ndayishimiye says of the two hundred patients who come in with malaria per month, ten percent die, but ACTs are having an impact.

"We've seen a regression of malaria cases since more people started taking ACT drugs," she said.

In an effort to combat drug-resistant malaria, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya have recently switched to ACTs and have begun training local health workers on how to use them.

Burundi was one of the first countries to switch to ACTs as the first line of defence after finding that traditional malaria drugs were showing 70 percent resistance.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says a drug regime should be changed at 15 to 20 percent resistance.

The non-profit medical organisation Medicins Sans Frontieres said the change over to ACTs was a main reason for the decrease in deaths and cases in Burundi.

Fabio Pompetti, head of mission for MSF in Burundi, said during peak malaria months in Karuzi province, which has a population of 350,000, MSF deals with around 15,000 cases per month, down dramatically from 170,000 cases in 2001.

"Malaria is the first cause of death in Burundi, but now we can see the figures are going down. ACTs are not only treating you, but reducing the number of human reservoirs," he said.

Human reservoirs refer to a mosquito's potential to pick up the disease from an infected human and transfer it to others.