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Fears grow for global health catastrophe caused by a resistance to malaria treatment

Save the Children is concerned that the spread of resistance to the most effective malaria treatment poses a significant threat to the lives of children.

Friday 29 May 2009

“The evidence of resistance to the most effective malaria treatment has extremely worrying implications for millions of children around the world who are most vulnerable to the deadly disease,” Save the Children’s Head of Health Simon Wright said today.

Malaria parasites seem to be developing a resistance to drugs formerly considered effective against falciparum malaria. In the developing world, where there is widespread poverty, malnutrition and healthcare systems are weak, the spread of resistance poses a significant threat to the lives of children. 

“Each year more than one million people die from malaria — 75 per cent are children”, Wright continued. “This is an easily preventable disease, and yet every thirty seconds a child dies of malaria. Save the Children renews its call for an urgent increase in effective and affordable prevention efforts and access to effective treatment of malaria."

"It costs just £5 to deliver an insecticide treated malaria net. Nets alone could prevent up to half a million child deaths a year. It would be an unacceptable tragedy if millions more lives were lost that could be saved by something as cheap as a mosquito net.”