By Ed Cropley
JOHANNESBURG, June 21 (Reuters) – To the minerals and
mobiles underpinning Africa’s pacy growth over the last decade,
you may soon be able to add malaria – or at least its absence.
Besides the huge human cost imposed on the continent – 90
percent of the 655,000 deaths estimated worldwide in 2010 – the
mosquito-borne disease is an economic millstone, draining public
and private resources and hammering productivity.
According to a 2001 study co-authored by U.S. economist
Jeffrey Sachs, the disease imposes an annual “growth penalty” of
1.3 percentage points on afflicted states, which includes most
of those south of the Sahara apart from South Africa.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and its biggest
oil producer, malaria is responsible for up to 25 worker days
lost per person per year, or two a month, due to direct
infection or the need to stay at home to nurse a sick family
member, often for a week or more.
In Zambia, it is the leading cause of absenteeism,
accounting for more than twice as many days off as HIV/AIDS, and
can consume up to 40 percent of the public health budget in
cash-strapped frontline states.
It may not always be thus.
The number of malaria deaths has fallen dramatically in the
last decade due to increased aid spending on basic items such as
insecticide-treated bed nets and drugs, the World Health
Organization (WHO) says.
More excitingly, the holy grail of a vaccine against a
notoriously adaptable parasite no longer appears unobtainable
after an experimental vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline was
shown last year to halve the risk of African children getting
the disease.
Continued…
