Melanesia on track to be malaria-free

Published: 8:09PM Wednesday June 18, 2008 Source: Reuters

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Pacific countries hit hardest by malaria will be disease-free by 2015 if aggressive action to combat the problem continues, a leading authority says.
  
Professor Sir Richard Feachem, chair of AusAID's malaria reference group, has painted a bright picture of the outlook to clear deadly malaria from the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.
  
Melanesia has the highest incidence of the mosquito-borne illness outside Africa, and malaria remains the biggest killer of children in those countries.
  
Giving the first update on Australia's $25 million ($NZ33 million) investment, made in 2007, to tackle the problem in the Pacific, Professor Feachem said the news so far was positive.
  
"The plans are in place, the money is on the table and this is the year we will start to see the results which, all going to plan, will be very good."
  
Plans are afoot to distribute chemically treated mosquito nets in the Solomons, and blood samples taken from 5,000 Vanuatu children confirmed the prevalence of the disease was as low as three per cent.
  
Work is under way to recruit staff and make available new third-generation drugs based on Chinese traditional medicine.
  
All going well, the Solomons and Vanuatu will be among more than a dozen countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, China and Sri Lanka, expected to be malaria-free by 2015.
  
Bali, Java, Aceh and PNG should make the milestone by 2025, Feachem said in a speech to the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney today.
  
He said a major commitment by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates last year to eradicate malaria globally was greeted with cynicism by many in the field, who felt eradication was too difficult a goal.
  
"But I'm more positive," he told experts at the Lowy meeting.
  
"I think it's achievable. It will take about five decades and we will do it providing we maintain the commitment to do it."
  
Global warming threatened to slow the process, so it was imperative that action was taken "briskly", said Feachem, who is based at the University of California in San Francisco.
  
"We're not sure how much it will add to the problem, but there's no doubt it's not going to help, so we need to strenuously move against malaria before temperatures rise too much."

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