MALARIA REMAINS A THREAT IN INDONESIA By Fardah

    Jakarta, Nov 6, 2012 (ANTARA) - Indonesia is still among the countries hardest hit by malaria, with almost half of the nation's 244 million population living in malaria-endemic areas, particularly in its eastern-most island of Papua.

         According to official data, there were 374 malaria-endemic districts in Indonesia in 2011. The number of confirmed malaria cases reported last year was 256,592, out of a total of 1,322,451 suspected cases.

         The country's Annual Parasite Incidence (API) is 1.75 per 1,000 people, which means that out of every 1,000 people living in malaria-endemic regions, almost two are affected by the disease.

         "The incidence of malaria in West Sulawesi is 1.91 per 1,000 inhabitants, surpassing the national average of 1.75 per 1,000 inhabitants," Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi said during a meeting on malaria in Mamuju, West Sulawesi, on Monday (November 5).

         "It means West Sulawesi's malaria incidence is 0.16 higher than the national figure, making West Sulawesi a region of high concern," she stated.

         Dr. Mboi made the statement, citing the health ministry's data on malaria cases in the province. However, according to data collected from the West Sulawesi administration, the incidence of malaria in the province is only 0.35 per 1,000 inhabitants.

        "Therefore, the discrepancy between the national and provincial data must be examined," the minister pointed out.

         She also called on provincial health officers to step up efforts to tackle the disease.

         "Malaria must be anticipated continuously in order to prevent an outbreak, which could hamper the implementation of the health development program in the region," Dr. Mboi said.

         Indonesians are at a much higher risk of the disease because the country is home to many species of mosquitoes.

         "In a publication released last year, it was revealed that out of the 3,000 species of mosquito species known in the world, 450 are found in Indonesia. The country is second only to Brazil, which has 465 types of mosquitoes," said William Hawley, an entomologist from Unicef and the country director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earlier this year.

         "The most dangerous species of Anopheles mosquitoes can be found in Maluku, North Maluku and Papua," he added, referring to the genus of mosquitoes that are the primary transmitters of the malaria-causing Plasmodium parasite.

         Malaria incidence is concentrated in the outer islands of Papua, Maluku, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Sumatra. Last year, there were 256,500 cases of malaria in the country, up from 230,000 in 2010.

         A new report, entitled "Defeating Malaria in Asia, the Pacific, Americas, Middle East and Europe", revealed that Indonesia and several other South Asian nations, such as India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea, bear the largest burden of the disease.

         "Asia accounts for the second highest burden of malaria, being second only to Africa. The Asia-Pacific, which includes 20 malaria-endemic countries, accounts for approximately 88 percent (30 million) of these cases and 91 percent (42,000) of malaria-related deaths," the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership said in a press statement recently.

         At a recent international conference, titled "The Malaria 2012: Saving Lives in the Asia-Pacific", held in Sydney, RMB and the World Health Organization (WHO) briefed regional leaders on the impact of malaria on development and health systems in countries outside Africa.
    "The region needs strong political leadership in the face of persistent economic uncertainty and profound changes in the landscape of global development aid," RBM Executive Director Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré said.

         On the occasion, health and foreign affairs ministers, malaria experts and representatives from donor and malaria-endemic governments called for a ¿stronger response¿ in the Asia-Pacific region, emphasising the importance of political leadership and regional coordination.

         Malaria is a potentially fatal disease threatening more than 2 billion people each year in the Asia-Pacific Region, which means that approximately 67% of the world's total population is at risk of malaria.

         "We're pursuing the target of a 75 percent reduction in malaria cases and deaths in the Asia- Pacific by 2015," said Senator Bob Carr, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs.

         "Malaria does not respect borders. Our focus must be on cross-regional action alongside traditional single-country strategies. Today's meeting is an opportunity for Asia-Pacific leaders to coordinate on controlling or eliminating the spread of malaria," Senator Carr added.

         According to a WHO report, there were approximately 34 million cases of malaria in regions outside Africa in 2010, which claimed nearly 46,000 lives.

         Asia gets hit with 30 million cases of malaria every year, resulting in 42,000 deaths annually. Most international efforts to tackle malaria have so far been concentrated on Africa, which has been hardest hit by the disease and accounts for a majority of the 650,000 cases of malaria-related deaths worldwide.

         However, out of the 3.3 billion people at risk from the mosquito-borne disease globally, 2.5 billion live outside Africa, mostly in Asia, where growing resistance to treatment is also a cause of concern.

         "Antimalarial drug resistance is one of the greatest challenges to continued success in controlling and eliminating malaria in the Asia-Pacific," said Dr. Robert Newman, the director of the WHO's Global Malaria Programme.

         "There is an urgent need for coordinated action against this public health threat, as called for in the Global Plan for Artemisinin Resistance Containment," he added.

         The WHO World Malaria Report 2011 indicates that with increased coordination and focus on tackling the disease in the past decade, 43 malaria-endemic countries worldwide have reported a 50 percent decline in malaria cases, compared with the year 2000.

         Despite this progress, an estimated 216 million malaria cases still occur in the world every year, causing nearly 650,000 deaths, mostly in children under five years of age.

         On April 25 this year, the global community commemorated World Malaria Day, themed "Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria".

         According to the WHO, investments in malaria control have created unprecedented momentum and yielded remarkable returns in the past decade.
    "In the past 10 years, increased investment in malaria prevention and control has saved more than a million lives," WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said.

         "This is a tremendous achievement, but we are still far from achieving universal access to life-saving malaria interventions," she added.

         World Malaria Day was instituted by the World Health Assembly at its 60th session in May 2007 to recognize the global effort to provide effective control over malaria. It is celebrated on April 25 ever year.

         WHO's new initiative, entitled ¿T3: Test, Treat, Track¿, urges malaria-endemic countries and donors to move towards universal access to diagnostic testing and antimalarial treatment, and to build robust malaria surveillance systems.

         However, malaria transmission still occurs in 99 countries around the world, and the disease¿s burden continues to cripple health systems in many African countries.

         In 2010, this entirely preventable and treatable disease caused an estimated 655,000 deaths worldwide. Approximately 560,000 of the victims were children under five years of age, which means malaria killed one child every minute.

         To overcome the disease, the Indonesian health ministry has launched a program called Malaria Eradication Movement (Gebrak Malaria), with the objective of eradicating the disease in the country by 2020.

         The government expects to wipe out malaria from Java, Aceh and the Riau Islands by 2015 and from Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara by 2020.  ***3***
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