Good news in the fight against malaria, a leading killer of poor children in African countries: efforts by groups in four African countries to distribute mosquito nets and a new drug called artemisinin appear to have drastically reduced the number of malaria-related deaths, according to the World Health Association.
The number of Ethiopian children who died of malaria in Ethiopia dropped more than 50 percent; in Rwanda, the number decreased more than 60 percent in just two months.
This is encouraging, but as the article says, malaria isn’t the only cause of death in African children: many also die of diarrhea, pneumonia or measles. With any luck, vaccination and other preventive efforts will prove as effective for those health problems as this was for malaria.
Tags: africa, artemisinin, malaria, mosquito nets
