Tomorrow is World Malaria Day even outside Africa

I had to emphasize the fact that 2008 is the first time that it would carry the title ‘World’ instead of ‘Africa’. It now includes the Mosquito Coast and other resource-poor tropical areas.

Malaria used to be a strictly African problem probably because of its historical association with the term “The Whiteman’s Death,” which was in reference to its decimation of the pioneer European explorers who came to Africa.

Those unfortunate explorers of the riverine areas of Africa, and their local hosts, had had no clue as to what they were suffering from until the feverish viral disease claimed their lives.

Hence, they called the unknown ailment ‘malaria’ because they assumed the ‘bad air’ in the swamplands surrounding them afflicted them.

Malaria is still a pandemic in Africa claiming over a million lives annually, especially among pregnant women and young children.

There have been many attempts to eradicate the malaria scourge, ranging from the Roll Back Malaria program to the provision of free insecticide treated nets, the manufacture of anti-mosquito bite creams, balms, coils, and sprays, in addition to an alphabet soup of anti-malarial medication.

The anti-malarial medication option has been so abused by some unscrupulous over the counter retail Chemist/Pharmacist shops that the unethical low-dosage prescriptions have unwittingly led to both infant death and the mutation of the malaria virus, which subsequently became immune to most single-drug therapy.

There are, of course, local solutions to the disease but these are usually bitter and unpalatable plant leaf extracts not usually suitable for everyone, with the added problem of not knowing precisely the appropriate dosage for each patient.

Consequently, The Gates Foundation has recently been funding a series of optimistic attempts to obtain a malaria vaccine and other malaria breakthroughs! Good money will be spent prospecting for uncertain results.

Perhaps, in my opinion, these approaches have not been totally successful because of a basic misunderstanding about the malaria disease. For one thing, to talk about a cure for or the eradication of malaria is, to say the least, quite unrealistic.

Unless a ‘king virus’, like the King snake, can be discovered that would ‘eat up’ all other viruses, the idea of insecticide-treated mosquito nets that kill mosquitoes but leave humans unharmed over time is a bit hard for me to accept/believe as an ideal preventive solution.

That kind of ‘king virus’ would certainly put paid to the other pesky viral syndrome: HIV/AIDS! Of course, like the larger-sized bacteria, each virus species is chemically different.

If a mosquito has never bitten you, you are privileged never to have had malaria. If you have been bitten, the mosquito must be the female Anopheles mosquito species before you can get the disease after a bite.

Other mosquito species, such as the Aedes and the very fearless and aggressive Tiger, are also dangerous and can pass on yellow fever, dengue fever, and other infectious diseases.

Once bitten, the mutant plasmodium virus from the Anopheles mosquito stays in you, multiplying geometrically. What do I mean by geometric multiplication of the viral load?

Just that each replicating batch of malaria virus produces a manifold set of new viruses as the viral count propagates itself, as I read years ago from an old edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. So, medication can only suppress or deplete the viral load but it cannot ‘cure’ malaria.

It is also important to know that medical intervention must be timely because once the viral load takes over the patient’s body and the malaria symptoms emerge, it would have successfully suppressed the patient’s appetite, depleted the red blood cell count, induced vomiting of food already eaten, produced an aversion to oily/fatty food, and weakened the entire body severely through muscular/joint pains and evening fever.

With regard to ‘eradicating’ malaria, it can only be done by either causing all stagnant pools of water to flow or removing all man made vessels and plant receptacles where rainwater can accumulate.

That is just an idea of the extent of or how large the breeding sites for malaria are. Along the riverbanks and in the larger stagnant pools of water, some have successfully stocked viviparous tilapia species that feed on the developing mosquito larvae.

However, the sheer number of these puddles and pools of water makes it impractical to achieve the complete and total ‘eradication’ of malaria.

However, poverty has always been a major stumbling block in all these academic and research based approaches. Yes, money to sustain the effort has always been the problem.

In fact, malaria can only be ‘managed’ when poverty is eradicated worldwide in the developing nations and other mosquito endemic areas of the world.

How can malaria be “cured” or “eradicated” when many countries of the world live on less than US$1.00 (one US dollar) per day?

How could these poor people afford to buy preventive anti-malarial medication or accessories if the opportunity cost of hunger or starvation is death?

In any case, how can anyone take potent medication on an empty stomach or without literally some peace of mind?

I mean, generally speaking, the same malaria endemic areas of the world are usually strife- and war-torn, apart from often being synonymous with areas with institutionalized undemocratic governments in place.

So, in the end, we are back to the need for peace and the elimination of poverty. That may as well be the best combination for eliminating/eradicating malaria.

That is, everyone knows that mosquitoes, like snakes, hate cold weather, which makes them inactive and to starve to death quickly.

People in the Temperate Zone are lucky because the only way that their compatriots in the Tropical Zone can replicate the same climatic conditions is by air conditioning!

The really miserable fact of life in most tropical developing nations is that, even if you can afford to buy an air conditioning unit, you would also have to either bear the prolonged absence of electricity or generate your own power exorbitantly.

Additional sources to explore for further references:

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9GDJdKnlBBIQgUA6AtXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2c2pnZGFrBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDOARjb2xvAwR2dGlkA0Y4NjBfMTM4BGwDV1Mx/SIG=11laolfhb/EXP=1209132583/**http%3a//www.malariaconsortium.org/, http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/latestnews/First-World-Malaria-Day-to.4000841.jp, http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/amd2007/.

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9GDJdKnlBBIQgUA3AtXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2cGFocjBjBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvAwR2dGlkA0Y4NjBfMTM4BGwDV1Mx/SIG=12nb7qkdc/EXP=1209132583/**http%3a//www.worldvision.org/aoa.nsf/aids/events_worldmalariaday_2008.

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9GDJdKnlBBIQgUA7AtXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE3YWM4cDQ3BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMTAEY29sbwMEdnRpZANGODYwXzEzOARsA1dTMQ--/SIG=12gms4kip/EXP=1209132583/**http%3a//www.worldwaterday.org/wwday/2001/disease/malaria.html.(http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9GDJdKnlBBIQgUA3gtXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2ODd2czIwBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMwRjb2xvAwR2dGlkA0Y4NjBfMTM4BGwDV1Mx/SIG=11pat7gfg/EXP=1209132583/**http%3a//www.who.int/topics/malaria/en/.

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9GDJdKnlBBIQgUA5gtXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2ZzE0MGs5BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDNwRjb2xvAwR2dGlkA0Y4NjBfMTM4BGwDV1Mx/SIG=11v4gdlf7/EXP=1209132583/**http%3a//www.cdc.gov/malaria/impact/index.htm.

http://www.worldvision.org/aoa.nsf/aids/events_worldmalariaday_2008.