The annual review meeting of Roll Back Malaria that started in Douala on Monday examined ways to overcome the challenges.
Central Africa needs to invest more effort to its weak health system, geographic and financial inaccessibility, resort by its population to ineffective drugs amid the prescribed ACTs, lack of reliable statistics, for the fight against malaria to reach elimination point. This was the assessment of Dr. Marie-Reine Fabry Jibidar, Regional Health Advisor for UNICEF, at the on-going 10th annual review and planning meeting of the Roll Back Malaria in Douala.
The health system in sub-region faces challenges of technological innovation, epidemiological and demographic transitions, professional differentiation, and population demands.
Africa is blamed for being slow to embrace science. The value system, according to the health experts, is almost under Western control (scientific journals, the Peer Review, the Citation Index, etc.). In most cases such a control imposes severe limits on universities in the Third World (which accumulate valuable information) saying such information are not publishable.
Malaria situation, according to WHO 2012 Report, indicates that between 2000 and 2012
There has been a 17% reduction of clinical cases, 26% reduction in infant mortality, but only 9 African countries will achieve the 75% reduction by 2015. This is because surveillance systems in Central Africa are the lowest in the 41 countries with high transmission. ACT is said to be under-prescribed due to the patient's inability to pay for but prefer specific treatments; lack of knowledge of malaria, influence and demand by patients as well as their unavailability in some places. Most acute is the administration of malaria drugs –51% (Bamenda) and 48.4% (Yaounde) – by people who do not have malaria.
Dr. Fondjo Etienne, Permanent Secretary of the National Porgramme for the Fight against Malaria, revealed that prevalence in Cameroon is dropping from 36% in 2011 to 27% in 2012 due to sustained funding assistance, free treatment among children below 5 years and pregnant women, free distribution of mosquito bed nets in 2011.
