Myanmar stepping up efforts to contain drug-resistant malaria

 

Efforts in Myanmar have also included seeking assistance from the private sector. The Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Myanmar Health and Development Consortium, and The Myanmar Business Coalition on AID hosted the first Malaria Forum on Private Sector Response to Artemisinin Resistance in Myanmar in November last year. A second forum is in the works.

Private sector involvement is considered vital as increased investment in development projects is sparking an increase in the number of migrant workers in the country, considered the most at-risk group for the spread of drug-resistant malaria.

“With rapid economic growth and increasing foreign direct investment in Myanmar, business and development ventures have attracted large local and foreign labour forces,” the consortium said. “With an increasingly mobile workforce, private employers stand to play a pivotal role in the advancement of public health strategies and policies by reaching populations at risk,” it explained.

At present, the 2nd Global Malaria Action Plan has been developed by the WHO and Roll Back Malaria. In Myanmar, the Ministry of Health, the Myanmar Health and Development Consortium and other organisations are involved in the effort to reduce cases of malaria as well as contain drug resistant malaria. 

Nearly 500,000 people in Myanmar suffer from malaria each year, with about 1,000 people dying from the disease.

USAID launched a multiyear US$24 million anti-malaria project in Myanmar in 2011. It draws on prevention, treatment and containment models developed in Cambodia. In 2012, funding for that year alone reached $20 million in Myanmar, with about half of this coming from the Global Fund, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation.

Aside from the drug-resistant malaria, the country is also focusing on reducing the death rate of children. The Health Department announced recently that it would reduce the death rate among children under five, dying of infectious diseases, to 43 per cent of the current rate next year.

To meet the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal, it also targets to reduce the death cases of children under one to two thirds.

The department stated that about 50,000 children under five died from infectious diseases – dysentery, malaria and pneumonia – per annum.

Of all, dysentery is the most contagious, causing 25 per cent of the deaths. 

Civil society organisations, volunteering at refugee camps in conflict areas, also reported an increasing number of diarrhea incidents due poor hygiene and shortage of clean water.

Challenges to the Health Department’s goal are persisting malnutrition and epidemic diseases in rural areas. 

According to Unicef, about 2.5 million infants in Myanmar suffer from hunger and eight per cent of them died of starvation.