Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through
female Anopheles mosquitoes. Each year, over half a billion people will become infected with
malaria, with roughly 80% of them living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly half a million people die
of malaria every year, most of them young children under the age of five. Unlike many other
infectious diseases, the death toll for malaria is rising. While there have been many programs
designed to improve access to malaria treatment, the best way to reduce the impact of malaria
in Sub-Saharan Africa is to focus on reducing the number of people who contract the disease in
the first place, rather than waiting to treat the disease after the person is already infected.
There are multiple drugs available to treat malaria, and many of them work well and save lives,
but malaria eradication programs that focus too much on them and not enough on prevention
haven’t seen long-term success in Sub-Saharan Africa. A major program to combat malaria was
WHO’s Global Malaria Eradication Programme. Started in 1955, it had a goal of eliminating
malaria in Africa within the next ten years. Based upon previously successful programs in Brazil
and the United States, the program focused mainly on vector control. This included widely
distributing chloroquine and spraying large amounts of DDT. More than one billion dollars was
spent trying to abolish malaria. However, the program suffered from many problems and in
1969, WHO was forced to admit that the program had not succeeded in eradicating malaria.
The number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa who contracted malaria as well as the number of
malaria deaths had actually increased over 10% during the time the program was active.
One of the major reasons for the failure of the project was that it set uniform strategies and
policies. By failing to consider variations between governments, geography, and infrastructure,
the program was not nearly as successful as it could have been. Sub-Saharan Africa has
neither the money nor the infrastructure to support such an elaborate program, and it couldn’t
be run the way it was meant to. Most African countries don't have the resources to send all their
people to doctors and get shots, nor can they afford to clear wetlands or other malaria prone
areas. The continent’s spending per person for eradicating malaria was just a quarter of what
Brazil spent. Sub-Saharan Africa simply can’t rely on a plan that requires more money,
infrastructure, and expertise than they have to spare.
