Workshop on Malaria control Held (Page 44)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah (June 30, 2008)
A GHANAIAN scientist, Professor Issabella A. Quakyi, has noted that the malaria causing parasite has so far eluded all scientific attempts at eliminating it and, therefore, making it difficult to find effective vaccine for the eradication of the disease.
She pointed out that instead of about 80 per cent efficacy level for any effective vaccine, existing ones so far found to fight the malaria-causing parasite stood at about 40 per cent.
She explained that researchers were having problems with the malaria-causing parasites, the plasmodium species, because the parasites had a very complex lifestyle, had antigenetically unique stages and also infected different tissues of the body.
Professor Quakyi, who is a researcher at the School of Public Health at the University of Ghana, was presenting a paper on the “Complexity of Malaria” at a forum in Accra organised by the Ghana Voices for Malaria-Free Future in collaboration with the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP). It was on the theme, “Towards a Greater Understanding of Malaria and Working Towards Elimination and Eradication”.
Participants were district directors of health service, public health practitioners, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and journalists.
She, however, said there were reasons to believe that vaccines could be found as efforts were being made in that direction by scientists the world over, since safe effective vaccine would contribute greatly to effective control and prevention of malaria.
Speaking on “Malaria Control, Elimination and Eradication”, the Programme Manager of NMCP, Dr (Mrs) Constance Bart-Plange, explained that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had ranged the fight against malaria from control to pre-elimination to elimination and finally to eradication.
Dr Bart-Plange said while some countries were presently at different stages, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the only country which had so far reached elimination stage and was awaiting WHO certification.
She stated that the fight was easier for countries in low transmission areas than those in high transmission areas which include those mostly in West Africa.
Countries that have attained pre-elimination status are El Salvador, Korea, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Paraguay, Mexico, China, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Dr Bart-Plange, however, stated that Ghana’s case was not a hopeless one, since it was among the four countries in Group A at the control stage. Others are Nigeria, Senegal and Benin.
She reiterated that malaria eradication stage could be achieved only after there was no malaria anywhere in the world (global eradication), and observed that that could be made possible if a vaccine was found.
“Global eradication of malaria may not be attained with the current existing tools,” she stressed.
The chairman for the programme, Professor David Ofori Adjei, who is also a former director of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), said the fight against malaria was a difficult one and therefore, must be supported by all.
He touched on the need for proper diagnosis of the disease in order to tackle it holistically, adding that there was the need to get reliable data to enable policy makers to plan properly.