By Kemo Cham
Sierra Leone`s anti-malaria crusade received a major moral boost last week when the country was named among 12 recipients of the 2015 African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) Award.
Sierra Leone was recognized for it efforts in improving on Malaria control. The awards were presented at the just concluded 24th African Union Heads of State Summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, at the end of January, but the trophy was formally presented to President Ernest Bai Koroma last Thursday.
ALMA is an Alliance of African heads of state and governments working towards the elimination of malaria-related deaths. It was created, through the initiative of Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, with the aim of forming a platform for African leaders to accelerate action against the disease. The idea was to utilize the individual and collective power of the heads of state to keep malaria high on the political and policy agenda at national, regional and global levels.
In Africa, malaria claims 437,000 children and sickens 163 million every year, according to figures provided by the ALMA.
Figures from the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) indicate 584 000 estimated malaria deaths, among 198 million cases worldwide, 90 percent of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa and 78 percent in children under five.
Annual economic burden of malaria is estimated at least US$ 12 billion per year of direct losses in Africa, plus many times more than that in lost economic growth. This makes fighting malaria pivotal for the continent and efforts to ramp up its control effort have led to recent successes across, according to ALMA figures. Between 2000 and 2013, malaria cases were reduced by 34 percent and mortality decreased by 54 percent. This translates into a 58 percent reduction in malaria deaths for children under five.
In 2014, 97 countries had on-going malaria transmission, 55 of which were on track to reduce their case incidence rates by 75 percent, in line with the World Health Assembly and Roll Back Malaria targets for 2015. 64 countries were said to be on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal target of reversing the incidence of malaria (between 2000-2015).
These gains were largely attributed to the delivery and use of life-saving tools in the fight against the disease, notable interventions including insecticide-treated mosquito net, systematic use of rapid diagnostic tests, and effective treatments such as artemisinin combination therapies.
Based on these and other factors, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that by the end of 2015 malaria deaths will be reduced by 67 percent on the continent.
Motivated by this progress, the AU leaders targeted the elimination of the disease by 2030. In line with this they adopted, on the sidelines of the heads of state summit, the malaria elimination agenda and launch of the ALMA 2030 Africa Malaria Elimination Scorecard to track progress and motivate action to ensure countries meet the targets.
But despite these successes, noted Ethiopian Prime Minster Hailemariam Desalegn, who currently chairs ALMA, “malaria still represents a serious health burden on our continent and concerted action is thus necessary to sustain the gains and move towards eliminating the scourge of malaria in our continent.”
“What we want is an Africa free from malaria,” added African Union Commission Chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
There were three categories of the 2015 ALMA awards. Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Comoros, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and The Gambia received the award for Excellence in Implementation of Vector Control.
Sierra Leone, Burundi, South Sudan and Togo received the award for Excellence for most improved in Malaria control.
Ethiopia got the only award for Excellence in Innovation for championing the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH) Scorecards for African countries.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Dr Samura Kamara, received Sierra Leone`s award on behalf of President Ernest Bai Koroma who was last week formerly presented with it at State House.
Accordingly, recipients are chosen by an independent selection committee representing the World Health Organization (WHO), Roll Back Malaria (RBM), the private sector, civil society and academia. The selection is based upon data collected by RBM partners and reflected in the ALMA scorecard for accountability and action and country quarterly reports.
The criteria around vector control include year-round coverage of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN) and/or execution of Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) interventions by at least 95 percent. Those for most improvement in malaria control were not clearly defined. But Dr Samuel Juana Smith, Manager of the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), is in no doubt of what led to the award for Sierra Leone.
“We have made collectively as a country a lot of efforts to ramp up malaria control including maternal, newborn and child health over the years that have led us to this award,” he said, adding however that much more needed to be done to consolidate the current gains.
“I fully know that Sierra Leone has shown most positively changes in all ALMA indicators for the past three years ranging from policies, impact and implementation, financing malaria commodities, reaching more children and pregnant women with cost effective interventions, and achieving universal coverage,” Smith added.
Sierra Leone famously concluded last month a two-cycle massive anti-malaria campaign – Mass Drug Administration (MDA) - covering over 3 million people in malaria hot spots regions of the country. That was part of the drive to reduce fevers which the Health ministry had said was complicating the fight against Ebola.
On Monday the final report of the outcome of that exercise was presented to pressmen at a special briefing at the offices of the NMCP.
Despite the numerous challenges faced by the MDA, said Mr Wilshire Johnson of the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone, it was overall successful. And he believed the recent reduction in Ebola cases has to do with the exercise.
Malaria is endemic in Sierra Leone with about 42 percent prevalence rate, and the disease presented a major difficulty for health providers last year when the Ebola epidemic erupted.
Malaria shares a lot in common with Ebola infection in terms symptoms – fever, headache, joint pains. Therefore diagnosing Ebola became a difficulty and many people refused to go to hospital even when they were sick, convincing themselves they had malaria. Many others simply failed to go to hospital in fear of getting wrongly diagnosed for Ebola.
All that contributed to the near total collapse of the entire healthcare system and exposed what critics say was already a failed system.
But President Koroma said the ALMA award vindicated his government`s healthcare policy and effort before the eruption of Ebola.
“It`s a clear indication that we were making progress in other health sector issues before Ebola struck” and dwarfed all the efforts of the government, the president said.
© Politico 10/02/15
