Malaria control beset with numerous challenges

Islamabad

Mass population movements within the country and across international borders (Iran and Afghanistan), natural disasters, unpredictable transmission patterns due to climatic changes and poor socioeconomic conditions are just a few of the major challenges facing Pakistan in achieving malaria control and elimination.

Compounding these factors is the fact that the private healthcare sector is largely unregulated, leading to unjustified and irrational use of anti-malarial drugs, which carries the threats of the development of resistance to anti-malarial drugs in the population. The declining health infrastructure and resource constraints add to the list of hurdles in achieving malaria control.

Views to this effect echoed at a World Malaria Day seminar organised by the Directorate of Malaria (DMC) Control here on Tuesday. The speakers emphasised that there is an urgent need to increase investments across all interventions including preventive measures, diagnostic testing, treatment and disease surveillance, as well as in harnessing innovation and expanding research. Concomitantly, the private sector has to be regulated to comply with National Case Management Guidelines for malaria, and to ensure definitive and radical cure of the disease.

The DMC reiterated its commitment to test, treat and track every malaria case in Pakistan in line with the Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016-2030, to end malaria for good. According to the World Malaria Report 2016, with an estimated 1 million cases annually, Pakistan remains one of the highest malaria burden countries in WHO-Eastern Mediterranean Region. An estimated 29% of Pakistan’s population (54.6 million) is at high risk for malaria. The high number of undetected malaria cases are increasing morbidity and mortality, causing economic losses both at household and commercial level as well as increasing the cost of both preventive and curative health care.

The aim of DMC is to reduce the malaria burden by 75% in high and moderate endemic districts, and to eliminate it in low endemic districts of Pakistan by 2020.