Vatican City (Fides Service) - Every year 200 million of the world's
inhabitants suffer attacks of malaria mainly in Africa, Latin America
and Asia, but not only. In Europe in 1998 over 60,000 indigenous
cases were reported. Malaria untreated can cause severe anaemia,
brain and kidney lesions resulting in death. Fortunately it can
be prevented and, if diagnosed early, successfully treated. On our
web site www.fides.org Fides Service offers a brief paper on the
disease by Kevin M. Cahill, M.D. a university professor. Since 1965
Director of the Tropical Disease Center, Lenox Hill Hospital, New
York, a medical facility founded to care for missionaries before,
during and after their tours in the tropics. Some 8,000 missionaries
have been treated and enabled to return to their service of the
Gospel. (Fides 28/06/2002) |
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| Malaria - Our society of globalisation and
info-technology fails to beat malaria |
Malaria is a constant, sometimes fatal threat to missionaries, especially
those working in areas of Africa, Latin American and Asia where
the Church has experienced great growth in recent decades.
In the vast underdeveloped areas of the tropics - where the majority
of the world's population struggle to exist and which, in this jet
age, have become the playgrounds of tourists, the arenas of diplomatic
conflicts, and the reservoirs for expanding business cartels - malaria
rules. No other disease so decimates the childhood population, so
enfeebles and destroys adults, or serves so well as a reflection
of the public health status of an area. It is estimated that 200
million people suffer attacks of malaria each year. In parts of
West Africa the death rate from falciparum malaria in children under
5 years of age reaches 10 per cent per year. Today malaria is, once
again, a major clinical challenge in the temperate climates as well;
over 60,000 indigenous cases were reported in Europe in 1998. The
present situation represents one of the great disappointments in
modern medicine.
In the 1950's many experts believed that malaria could be eradicated
by a combination of aggressive public health programs aimed at destroying
the anopheline mosquito vector while simultaneously eliminating
the Plasmodium parasite reservoir in humans with new synthetic compounds.
Neither plan worked well; in many malarious areas basic health services
barely existed and vast eradication schemes soon fell victim to
ineptness as well as to political and military differences that
made necessary regional efforts impossible. More significant was
the world wide emergence of parasite strains resistant to drugs,
and mosquitoes increasingly unaffected by potent insecticides.
Even advances in technology, such as the availability of blood banks
and transfusions, and changes in societal practices, such as the
explosion in intravenous drug abuse, have contributed to the spread
of malaria, especially in the more affluent parts of the world.
In Europe, the United States, Australia and most of the Soviet Union,
where endemic malaria had been eradicated, the growth of rapid and
relatively cheap air travel has been accompanied by a sharp increase
in imported malaria, and airport outbreaks have become a new phenomenon
in the western world.
Physicians everywhere must be familiar with the clinical and therapeutic
aspects of malaria since there is no other disease that can pass
so rapidly from a mild illness, the treatment of which is relatively
simple, to a catastrophic state in which the outlook is virtually
hopeless. Failure to consider malaria in differential diagnosis,
or the inability to recognize parasites in a blood smear, can be
a fatal error.
In the western world Malaria is a disease of red blood cells. It
is transmitted from man to man through the bite of an infected mosquito.
Untreated it can cause severe anaemia, brain and kidney lesions
resulting in death. Fortunately it can be prevented, and, if diagnosed
early, successfully treated.
Prevention is based on "barrier protection" - placing
a shield between exposed skin and the mosquito. This is done by
wearing long sleeve garments, using chemical mosquito repellents
and, at night, mosquito nets. There are various effective prophylactic
drug regimens that can be used for long periods. No anti-malaria
vaccine is available.
Therapy of complicated malaria can be a great clinical challenge
requiring, in severe cases, all the skills and equipment of modern
medicine. Drug resistance is posing increased therapeutic difficulties. |
