Ebola crisis may set back malaria fight

A leading malaria control expert has said efforts to contain the disease may be jeopardised by the Ebola crisis, BBC News reports.

Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, who heads the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, said after visiting west Africa: "Understandably, all the health workers' attention is on Ebola."

Children's wards which used to be full of malaria patients were becoming "ghost areas," she added.

In 2012, malaria killed 7,000 people in the three countries worst hit by Ebola.

Most of these will have been young children - although malaria is curable.

The disease caused almost 4,000 deaths in Sierra Leone in 2012 - as well as around 2,000 deaths in Liberia and approximately 1,000 in Guinea.

Now the three countries are wrestling with the Ebola virus and Dr Nafo-Traoré said she feared that recent gains in preventing malaria could be threatened by the crisis.

She said: "These countries have previously been really hit by malaria. But five years ago, it was even worse - the deaths were double.

"We all agree that no child should die from malaria, because we have the tools to prevent and treat it.

"But now, understandably, all the health workers' attention is on Ebola.

"We used to see hospital beds with three children in them at a time, because there was not enough space.
 

Read more on the BBC website.