Brazzaville -- Resistance to available anti-malarial drugs has become a growing threat to efforts to control the malaria in Africa, the World Health Organization's Regional Office for Africa warned in Brazzaville on Wednesday.

In a statement to mark the continent's second Africa Malaria Day on Thursday, whose theme is Mobilizing Communities to Roll Back Malaria, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Ebrahim Samba, said a result of this development had been an increase of malaria cases and deaths on the African continent.

Malaria kills more than one million people worldwide every year. Of these, 90 per cent are in Africa. Most of those killed on the continent are children. One out of every five African children dies from malaria before the age of five.

"Africa is seeing an increase in malaria as resistance to common anti-malaria drugs becomes a common threat.

"Barely 15 years ago, chloroquine was a cheap, widely available and highly effective drug against the illness. Today, one in two cases of malaria in East and Central Africa cannot be treated effectively with chloroquine because of resistance to the drug," Dr Samba said.

He said while new drugs may become available, they are likely to be more costly and less accessible to especially Africa's poor.

Population movements into highly endemic areas due to civil strife and emergencies and resistance of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes to some insecticides have compounded the malaria situation in Africa, he said.

Dr Samba warned that the economic burden of malaria on Africa was heavy and that the illness had become a major development issue. Citing a recent study by Harvard University, he said sub-Saharan Africa's GDP in the year 2000 would have been a colossal 32 per cent higher had malaria been eliminated 25 years ago.

"Malaria, it is abundantly clear, is a major obstacle to progress and a critical development issue," he said.

Dr Samba said it was, however, gratifying to note that cots of rolling back malaria in sub-Saharan Africa remained relatively small compared with the potential benefits. According to the study cited above, the short-term benefits of control can be estimated at US$12 billion a year.

Dr Samba urged Africa and its global partners to pull together in the fight against malaria. "We have the tools. We have the economic and moral justification. Let us now muster the will to Roll Back Malaria." 

For further information, please contact

Dr Yao Kassankogno
Regional Adviser, Malaria Control
World Health Organization - Regional Office for Africa
P.O. Box BE773, Belvedere, Harare, Zimbabwe
Email:  kassankognoy [at] whoafr.org
Tel: (+ 263.4) 700026; 746127

Public Information and Communication Unit
P.O. Box 6, Brazzaville, Congo
Tel: 1 321 95 39378 ; Fax: 1 321 95 39513