Malaria vaccine a welcome life saver

TANZANIA and, indeed, the rest of sub-Sahara African nations, must have heaved a sigh of relief on hearing that an anti-malaria vaccine has eventually come aboard.

The best news is that the disease will be history by the year 2015. President Jakaya Kikwete told the nation a few months ago that malaria retarded economic growth and overburdened the already overstretched health care services in Tanzania and most African countries.

The Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Hussein Mwinyi, has often added his voice in the fight against malaria saying that the disease is still the leading cause for morbidity and mortality particularly in children and pregnant women. He says that malaria accounts for about 12 million cases seen at the outpatient departments (OPDs) and about 60,000 to 80,000 deaths per year.

In other words, it accounts for 30 to 40 per cent of OPD attendances and 34 per of overall mortality. This being the case, malaria remains the leading cause of outpatients, inpatients, and admissions of children aged below five years at health facilities. Malaria is also the major cause of loss of economic productivity in persons aged between 15 and 56.

The disease is a critical impediment to learning capacity for people aged between five and 25 years. In that case, the disease becomes one of the most frustrating obstacles to economic development and foreign investment in Tanzania.

Malaria has been estimated to cost Tanzania more than 240 million US dollars every year in lost gross domestic product, although it can be controlled for a fraction of that sum. Well, this is a stark reality that hurts, to say the least.

In Africa, 30 million women living in malaria-endemic areas become pregnant each year. For these women, malaria is a threat both to themselves and to their babies, with up to 200,000 newborn deaths each year.

Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to malaria as pregnancy makes them more susceptible to the disease and increases the risk of illness, severe anaemia and death.

For the unborn child, maternal malaria increases the risk of spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, premature delivery and low birth weight - a leading cause of child mortality. These are bitter facts that must now be turned around. Indeed, malaria is not acceptable anywhere.