By Dickens Wasonga.
About 36,000 people lose their lives in Kenya annually as a result of malaria, a principle researcher at the Kenya Medical Research Institute and the Centres of Disease Control Dr. Simon Kariuki has said.
Kariuki who was speaking in Kisumu during a media workshop on malaria vaccine trials said of the number, 30% perish on outpatient consultation while 15% die in hospital admission.
He said Kemri/CDC through its third phase programme of RTS,S, which is the world’s most clinically advanced malaria vaccine candidate which began last year aims at reducing the scourge by 2015.
“If the vaccine is proved to be effective in the prevention of malaria, it will be introduced as part of the routine child vaccination series in Kenya by 2015,” he said.
The medic pointed out that the vaccine trials are currently taking place in 11 sites in seven African states including; Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, and Tanzania.
Dr. Kariuki added that at the 11 sites, RTS,S is the first vaccine designed primarily for use in Africa, where he said malaria kills about 863,000 people annually, majority of them children below the age of five.
He exuded confidence that by conducting the trials in seven different countries across sub-Saharan Africa, researchers will be able to evaluate the vaccine candidate’s efficacy in a variety of settings, with diverse patterns of malaria transmission.
He said developing a vaccine against malaria is critical to eradicating the disease since it would complement existing interventions, such as bed nets and effective drug therapies.
“Research into a viable vaccine is particularly good news to Kenya where almost 36,000 children die every year from malaria and about eight million outpatient malaria treatments are recorded at health facilities,” said Kariuki
He cited that Kemri/CDC is also enlightening communities on the importance of taking other proven precautions in the fight against malaria. Dr Kariuki said there was need to keep using insecticide treated nets, preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy, draining stagnant water and using the right Artemether-Lumefatrine (AL) drugs to treat the disease when prevention fails.
The medical personnel lamented that malaria if not well controlled will continue posing enormous health and socio-economic burden at individual household, regional and national levels.
He said the scourge reduces economic growth in the country by 1.3 % adding that its reduction by 10% results in 0.3 % higher economic growth.
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