Malaria: This Old Story Should Still Make News

Up until the early 20th century, malaria was rampant in Europe and prevalent in parts of North America, Australia, and other more developed countries. Now, unless you are one of the unlucky few to get infected on your travels, it is unlikely that you have had any first-hand experience of this disease.

However, if you are not living in an area where malaria is a thing of the past, you may become one of the 300 – 500 million people annually who are infected with a malaria parasite. Although most people survive, one million die, every year.

The costs of malaria are also enormous when measured in economic terms. Highly malarious countries are among the very poorest in the world, and typically have very low rates of economic growth; many have experienced outright declines in living standards in the past thirty years.

I travelled to Gambia and Kenya earlier this year to lead a 5-day workshop called “Malaria and the Media”. A course developed to build the knowledge and skills of journalists in order to improve the quality and quantity of malaria reporting.

Ayo Palmer, Director of the Centre For Innovation Against Malaria

Upon my arrival at the airport in Gambia, I was met by Ayo Palmer (left), Director of the “Centre For Innovation Against Malaria” (CIAM), a Gates funded organisation working in The Gambia and other parts of West Africa, and also our local “partner organisation” assisting with the workshop.

She explained why the Gambia and other parts of Africa can not follow in the footsteps of other countries that have already gotten rid of malaria.
“Whether or not malaria carrying mosquitoes are wiped out in a country depends more on the weather, the environment and the mosquito’s susceptibility to insecticide.

And, because the problem here is so extensive, the challenge here in Africa is how to reduce the numbers of infected mosquitoes feeding on people sufficiently enough to interrupt the transmission of malaria, rather than to wipe out all malaria transmitting mosquitoes. The most effective weapons for control continue to be anti-malarial drugs, insecticide treated nets, and insecticides.

So, if control is the answer, why are so many still suffering and what can be done? Dr. Palmer continued, “A more adequate health infrastructure is needed with more qualified staff to treat the patients, and a better system for distributing drugs. More involvement is needed from our politicians, and concerned individuals. We have to have more action in our communities and homes, and better access to prompt and effective treatment, and More attention is needed from the media as there are very few local stories and programmes relating to malaria”.

Perhaps this is a bit surprising considering that the (Gambian) Independent newspaper recently declared malaria the number one health problem in the nation.

This is not just a problem for the Gambia.

Patients suffering from malaria in a Kenyan hospital. Photo: Colin Lloyd

A couple of weeks later, I was standing in front of twenty five Kenyan journalists and programmed makers in Nairobi. I asked if anyone had ever had malaria and was astonished as all twenty five hands went up. It turned out that those living in malaria prone rural areas had had this disease not once, but many times over.

With the magnitude of this disease you might imagine that there should be many articles in the newspapers, and many programmes on the radio or on television dedicated to prevention, control, and new developments relating to malaria. This, however, was not the case.

Deaths related to HIV/AIDS is just as devastating in these areas but it doesn’t take long to find a new story, or hear radio or view a television news item, mentioning condom use, or the development of a possible vaccine, or the trials and struggles of families and individuals living with AIDS.

Has malaria been around so long that is has become an accepted part of life in these areas? Do we just assume that malaria just not as exciting to the viewer, reader, or listener?

I put these questions to participants in both countries.

“It was difficult to fresh ideas for something that has always been with us”, said one journalist from Kenya, “unless there is a dramatic breakthrough, I don’t think about malaria much”, said another from the Gambia.
Some of the others agreed that malaria has been around so long that they just don’t think about it very much anymore. Another confided that stories on malaria take too much time as accurate facts and figures were sometimes difficult to obtain.

Well, yes, in some cases, it may take a bit more digging and a bit more research, and a bit more creativity, and possibly, a bit more effort to come up with a malaria story that would “sell” as well as other “trendier” health-related stories, but if you belong to the 40 % of the world’s population who live in malaria endemic areas, I am sure you will agree that this disease should not be ignored.

There are many angles to be pursued, many developments to be investigated, and many stories to be told.

Even subtle messages can be powerful. How about producing a radio-soap, then incorporating some positive health messages into the programme? One of the characters, for example, could be setting up her mosquito bed-net while talking to her friends.

What about a feature story on a mother who recognised the symptoms of malaria in her sick child. What did she do next?

Is there anyone in the village claiming to have a cure for malaria? What proof does he/she have of this cure? This is something you can investigate.
How about working with a local NGO to develop a series of public service announcements on malaria prevention?

You could do a news feature on the myths surrounding malaria? Some people believe that you can get malaria my eating mangos!
If you need any facts and figures there are plenty of websites where you can find reference material. If in doubt, start with the World Health Organisation’s site at www.rbm.who.org .

Both the Gambians and the Kenyans attending the Malaria and the Media workshop were quite keen to produce malaria stories and feature programmes for his or her radio or television station, or newspaper. The motivation is there -- editors take note…and if you need to make some room, you may want to trim down the minister’s speech. In fact, cut it out altogether. Consider it a “political donation”.

So, when we take the Malaria and the Media course to Mozambique and Cameroon later this year, I hope to report that journalists and programme makers in the Gambia and Kenya are now making a difference – and, if they can do it, you can too.

Colin Lloyd is founder of the Commonwealth Health and Media Partnership

Many working print, radio, and television journalists, producers, and programme makers, from around Africa and around the World are signed up to the Health and Media emails listserv. Sign up for the listserve here.

Malaria History

- Deadly fevers, probably malaria, have been recorded since the beginning of the written word (6000-5500 B.C.)

- The Romans coin the name malaria – meaning bad air

- Quinine, a toxic plant alkaloid made from the bark of the Cinchona tree in South America, was used to treat malaria more than 350 years ago.

- During the American Civil War (1861-65), over one half of the Union Army troops of the Union Army got malaria annually.

- In 1880, the first true sighting of the malaria parasite was made in Algeria by a French Army physician, Charles-Louis-Alphonse Laveran, while viewing blood slides under a microscope.

- 1950 saw the launch of a pilot project for the control of malaria by spraying with DDT.

- WHO initiated strategies for the global eradication of malaria in the mid-1950s.

- From 1956 to 1969, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Aid, (USAID) gave $790 million to the Global Eradication of Malaria Program. From 1955 to about 1970, USAID gave approximately $1 billion to WHO and various national malaria eradication programs.

- In 1967, WHO realized that the global eradication of malaria was impossible for a variety of reasons and the focus shifted to control of the deadly disease.

- In 1972, the Global Eradication of Malaria Program was formally declared dead.

- 1980 Chloroquine resistance by P. falciparum appeared in coastal Tanzania and Kenya and spread over most of Africa

- In 1987, Dr. Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, a biochemist from Colombia, developed the first synthetic vaccine against the Plasmodium falciparum parasite. The vaccine is still being developed and has not yet proven to reduce deaths in Africa.

- Today, malaria kills over 1 million people annually; three thousand children every day.

Source: The Malaria Capers by Robert S. Desowitz