Reports indicate that eliminating malaria can be achieved with long term investments and shifts in policies and funding that is focused primarily on controlling the disease. According to the Lancet medical journal, scientists say that the process of getting rid of malaria will be gradual. There will need to be long-term investments to keep the disease away, even after it is gone. A leader of the Clinton Health Access Initiative in the United States says that successful elimination should not look to a "quick win" over malaria, but a routine expenditure. About half of the world's population is at risk for malaria, spread by mosquitoes, according to the World Health Organization. 250 million people are infected each year and almost a million people die each year because of malaria.
Lancet editors Richard Horton and Pamela Das claimed to have showed that countries should analyse the costs and implications of malaria elimination. They said that the goal is too far off, so to create a swing in funding and political commitment may be dangerous. The existing methods to malaria elimination should not be distracted either. Over a million lives can be saved in the next five years if existing methods were scaled up. One hundred years ago, 178 countries had malaria for an endemic. After 1945, 79 countries have eliminated malaria, including Britain and the United States in 1952, Australia in 1970, Morocco in 2005 and Turkmenistan this year. 99 countries still have endemic malaria. Out of those 99, 32 countries are moving close toward elimination, while the other 67 are doing short-term remedies.
It's good news to even have a plan for wiping out a disease that's responsible for the deaths of millions of people, to know that it's possible to end a terrible endemic. Although people can be hasty to jump into the elimination phase of a gradual process. People must know about the affects of using most of the funds to eradicate malaria and the mosquitoes that cause it. Countries must consider all the other important avenues of money flow so that it doesn't result in the crashing and burning of the different components that make up the equilibrium of the country. For example political commitments need to be funded, schools and housing needs to be funded, and so forth. If all funds were used toward eliminating diseased ridden pests, other components of the country could fall or suffer from lack of financial support.
If such a problem exists, then the people of the these disease ridden countries could consider shifting their way of life away from some things that need funding. Perhaps funding for personal automobiles can die down for the sake of the funding going toward ending malaria. It's possible to have fund raisers for the cause of ending the disease. If the approach toward the elimination of malaria is still a difficult march, then perhaps funding can come from other countries that are willing to assist in the endeavor. With the help of funding from other caring countries, getting rid of malaria will be a goal in easier reach than before. One country could help, or perhaps more than one country can share the cost of the endeavor. If funds are indeed an issue, than sharing costs is a good idea toward helping the general population.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69S1J620101029
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