Most Africans still have no access to malaria testing, drugs: MSF

Sep 30, 2008, 11:13 GMT

Johannesburg - Most of the around 1 million people that succumb to malaria annually still have no access to effective testing and drugs, international medical non-governmental organization, Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres MSF), said Tuesday.

'Although effective tools exist to identify and treat malaria - one of the main infectious diseases responsible for high mortality, especially among children in sub-Saharan Africa - Medecins sans Frontieres experience is that an extremely limited number of patients have access to them,' the organization said in a report released in Johannesburg.

In the report entitled Full Prescription, Better Malaria Treatment for More People, MSF's Experience, the organization noted several positive developments in the fight against malaria in recent years.

These included the roll-out of rapid tests that allow malaria to be diagnosed within 15 minutes, the distribution of millions of insecticide-treated bed nets and many governments' adoption - at least in their treatment protocols - of more effective artemisinin-based treatment.

In the past, doctors usually recommended chloroquine, but resistance to chloroquine is high in some parts of the continent.

Despite these advances, however, only 3 per cent of African children affected by malaria receive effective treatment, MSF, which has treated 1.3 million malaria patients, said.

Drawing on its experience in fighting malaria in Mali, Chad and Sierra Leone, MSF said the problem lay in weak distribution systems and a lack of health structures and qualified staff.

MSF also found significant financial and geographical barriers to treatment for many Africans.

Many people simply cannot fork out money for treatment for themselves or their children, even where the drugs are subsidized, MSF said, calling for all costs to patients to be eliminated.

MSF also recommended that rapid diagnostic testing be systematically used where malaria was suspected, without which other fevers may be mistaken for malaria.

Given the difficulties for people in remote parts of Africa in accessing clinics, MSF, a known champion of community-based healthcare, called for community workers be trained up to carry out malaria testing and awareness activities.