I know this posting is late for World Malaria Day. But the Myanmar Times did such a good job of cut and paste from the APLMA press release
http://aplma.org/upload/aplma_media/WMD_Press%20Release_F.pdf
that I had to take note. It would be good reporting to contact someone from Myanmar about malaria.
Jamie
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No malaria in Asia Pacific by 2030: APLMA
Myint Kay Thi
Myanmar Times
Tuesday, 25 April 2017
The Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance (APLMA) aims to eliminate the disease in the region by 2030 as it marks World Malaria Day today.
In Myanmar, malaria still remains a public health issue. The country recorded over 400,000 malaria cases in 2011 but the number went down to 200,000 in 2014.
According to a WHO report in 2016, approximately 16 percent of the population, or 8.5 million people, in Myanmar are still at high risk of malaria transmission.
Health experts have also become increasingly concerned in recent years about the spread of artemisinin-resistant malaria along the Myanmar borders.
Myanmar health official have been distributing insecticide-treated mosquito nets and clothing, as well as spray repellents to combat drug resistant malaria.
In 2014, the Regional Artemisinin Resistant Initiative project was initiated to combat the rising resistance levels of the malaria virus.
The program, backed by the Global Fund, is active in 72 townships, which are mostly border towns near Thailand, Bangladesh, India and China.
This year, the initiative will expand to four more townships in eastern Shan State along the Myanmar-China border with the intention to eliminate drug resistant malaria.
Dr. Benjamin Rolfe, APLMA’s Executive Director and CEO, said that drug resistant malaria was a health crisis that could drastically impact the hard-fought success achieved in the fight against this disease.
“If the most important treatment for malaria becomes ineffective, we will surely see a devastating rise in malaria mortality, mostly amongst children,” said Dr. Rolfe.
With 21 malaria-endemic countries recording about 32 million malaria cases annually, Asia Pacific has the highest number of cases after Africa.
But medical and healthcare advancement in fighting the disease has helped reduce the number of cases and deaths.
Due to intense scale-up intervention in the Asia Pacific, greater access to medicines and bed nets, better screening and diagnoses to fight malaria, more than 80 million cases and over 100,000 associated deaths had been reduced since 2000, APLMA said.
However, there are still two billion people in the region at risk of infection.
India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea bear the largest burden of the disease, accounting for 89pc of all remaining malaria cases in the region, APLMA said.
According to APLMA, it had reduced the number of malaria cases and associated deaths by almost half over the past 15 year, driven by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
To build on this achievement, Asia Pacific leaders agreed on a historic pledge to eliminate malaria in Asia by 2030 at the 2013 East Asia Summit.
http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/yangon/25724-no-malaria-in-asia-pacific-by-2030-aplma.html
