Shivering and sweating feverishly, Felicia Egbuchue took the malaria medicine her doctor prescribed. It had cured her in years past. This time it didn't. She was rushed to the hospital and hooked up to an intravenous drip.
"I have no inner strength. I feel like I'm dying," the 30-year-old university student said from her hospital bed.
Malaria, the ancient mosquito-borne disease that was rolled back by medical advances in the mid-20th century, is making a deadly comeback.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Strains of the disease are becoming increasingly resistant to treatment, infecting and killing more people than ever before -- sickening as many as 900 million last year, according to estimates by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
More than 1 million people -- and as many as 2.7 million by some estimates -- of those victims died. The vast majority of the deaths were in Africa.
After three days in a private hospital in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, Egbuchue recovered from what doctors said was a strain that had become resistant to many of the standard treatments.
"Malaria is something that we thought we had conquered years ago. But more and more of our people are dying from it every day," said Patrick Dike, a malaria specialist at the Lagos hospital.
Only AIDS kills more people worldwide. Among children, malaria kills even more than AIDS.
The economic cost of malaria is also high -- in African, Asian and Latin American countries where the disease is endemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates up to US$12 billion is lost annually due to the disease.
Of the 225 US Marines and Navy forces who went ashore to assist West African peacekeepers in Liberia, 51 showed symptoms -- an unusually high rate, US officials said.
International efforts to contain or even eradicate the disease have received a boost in recent years with major grants from the US government and from the US$4.7 billion five-year UN Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- a multibillion dollar fund set up by the American software tycoon -- has supported malaria efforts and is also expected to announce new funding toward malaria medicines, controls and vaccine research this weekend.
"We hope that malaria gets some additional visibility," Bill Gates said in a conference call with journalists. "Of those million people who die, overwhelmingly many are children.... This is something we should demand more action on."
Malaria campaigners complain that despite the increased focus, their efforts remain woefully underfunded. Whereas AIDS vaccine research receives US$400 million a year, malaria research receives just US$60 million.
While donors commit an estimated US$200 million each year to treating impoverished patients and distributing mosquito nets and insecticides to prevent mosquito bites that transmit the disease, experts say they need at least US$1 billion to make a dent.
"Malaria has to some extent been forgotten by the international community," said Allan Schapira, a senior official in WHO's Rollback Malaria program.
"Apart from AIDS, it is the single worst child health problem that we haven't got a grip on," he said.
In Nigeria, a nation of 126 million people where government officials estimate up to one-quarter of the world's malaria deaths occur, researchers at the national Nigerian Institute of Medical Research test malaria treatments and other drugs on mice in a single tiny, stiflingly hot laboratory.
"The resources available in Nigeria for this work are limited or even nonexistent," research director Philip Agomo said.
A major cause of malaria's alarming resurgence is the parasite's increasing resistance to the drugs used to treat and prevent the disease -- including chloroquine, the cheapest and most effective anti-malarial since the 1950s.
The number of alternatives are limited. The WHO supports use of multi-drug combinations based on artemisinin, until recently an extract from the sweet wormwood plant used in China for centuries but little known in the West.
Yet aid agency officials say that artemisinin is not yet produced in large enough quantities to affordably treat the large numbers of Africans who need it most.
Some governments and Western donors have been hesitant to promote the treatment widely because of a lack of funds -- artemisinin is 10 times more expensive than chloroquine, or between US$4.50 and US$9 for a three-day treatment.
"It is definitely the future," Anne Peterson, head of global health for USAID in Washington, said of artemisinin-based drugs. "Yet it is far more expensive and harder to get out to the numbers of people who need it."
The Nobel Prize-winning international humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is urging the US and other Western governments to support and fund artemisinin-based therapy regimens. It notes chloroquine and other drugs have become ineffective in up to 80 percent of malaria cases in some countries.
"Donors must stop wasting their money funding drugs that don't work," MSF said in a report.
Peterson said that until it receives more funds, the US agency will support the use of the "cheapest, most effective drugs" in countries where they still have a use.
Dike said in the absence of affordable alternatives, he and some colleagues have in desperation begun exchanging information about what available combinations work best to treat patients.
"People don't understand why their relatives are sometimes not recovering, or why they are not being cured as quickly as they are used to being cured. How do you explain drug resistance? When they are suffering, the doctor is blamed," he said.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry