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[NAIROBI]疟疾infection and deaths could be avoided by more than half a million young children thanks to an accelerated regime of preventative drugs being rolled in four African countries, says global health agency Unitaid.
The intervention, known as the Intermittent Preventive Treatment of malaria in infants-plus (IPTi+), builds upon a World Health Organization (WHO) recommended strategy that uses the antimalarial sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine to prevent malaria in children under one year old.
“This intervention is good, and I would emphasise that it should be highly data-driven to accurately ensure effectiveness.”
贝迪鲁·阿拉米里(Adilu Alamirie),亚的斯亚贝巴大学
“在目前的IPTI方案中,提供给婴儿的保护只有一年的时间,但是随着IPTI+的剂量增加,[这]将合格的年龄段扩展到两年,我们希望我们能够实现更大的成就Impact。
IPTi is safe and could cut malaria in children under one year of age by 30 per cent but has been underused in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the health agency.
它是在上周的WHO认可使用RTS的WHO,S疫苗的使用childrenin Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with moderate to high malaria transmission.
However, health experts maintain that other interventions are necessary since the vaccine is only 30 per cent effective in reducing severe cases of malaria.
The WHO’s latestWorld Malaria Reportshowed that多数疟疾病例和死亡发生在2019年撒哈拉以南非洲,,,,which accounted for 94 per cent of the 229 million malaria cases reported globally. Almost 70 per cent of the 409,000 malaria deaths worldwide occurred in children under five years, making children the most vulnerable group.
With a $35 million investment from Unitaid, the IPTI+ programme led by Population Services International (PSI) aims to develop scalable models in Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Mozambique by administering an estimated 2.5 million doses of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine to protect over half a million children under two years of age from malaria, theUnitaid声明adds.
据Unitaid称,IPTI+是一项具有成本效益的措施,通过大众运动和社区外展提供了交付过程。卡梅伦告诉scidev.net。
“This has been a country-driven project. And [in] the first nine months of the four-year project, PSI will co-create with the national malaria control programmes in the target countries on how the project will be implemented to allow local needs and contextual constraints to be collated and addressed,” Cameron explains.
根据unitaid的说法,ipti的广泛采用以前曾面临挑战,包括误解磺胺毒素 - 羟胺的有效性和缺乏有能力的政策。
Bedilu Alamirie, an assistant professor of statistics at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, says partnerships need to be strengthened with the relevant ministries, research institutions and other key players who can provide further guidance on implementing the project.
贝利卢(Bedilu)是莫桑比克(Mozambique)绘制儿童疟疾风险的专家scidev.net:“这种干预措施很好,我会强调的是,它应该是高度的data-drivento accurately ensure effectiveness.”This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.