3 raisons pour lesquelles nous ne nous sommes toujours pas débarrassés du paludisme (document en anglais)

1. 3 reasons why we still haven’t gotten rid of malaria

1. Among all the deadly diseases that we have come across over the years, malaria is the most ancient and has the biggest death toll. Although we evolved and we supposedly found a cure, people are still dying from an infected mosquito bite. In 1600, we discovered the quinine which proved to be effective against malaria. Then in 1980, we discovered that the source of the infection wasn’t bad air or miasma, but mosquito bites. Despite this, we still can’t solve this disease. There are three main reasons why we still haven’t gotten rid of it. First, it’s a scientific challenge. The parasite that causes malaria has a complex constitution that is hard to deal with and so is the mosquito that carries it. The second reason is economic. Malaria occurs mostly in the poorest places on Earth. Poverty causes malaria, but malaria itself causes poverty. It strikes during harvesting season and causes huge economic losses due to the bed ridden farmers. It poses a huge challenge to provide a cure in a society that lacks all means of delivering it. Finally, the third reason is cultural. People who live in “malarious” parts of the world normalized the spread of this deadly disease. Malaria for them is just like the cold and the flu for us. They consider the malaria normal and don’t take precautions against it, which makes them more vulnerable. Altogether, malaria poses a scientific, economic and cultural problem in society. The biggest obstacle to tackle is the political issue. Historically, people simply lived with the disease. The main attacks against malaria came from people who are free from the paralysing politics put in place by some leaders. It’s basically from the outside. This in itself introduces other kinds of difficulties.  

For example, one of the first foreign attempts was in the 1950s. The scientific department in the US developed tools to fight against malaria. However, they underestimated the power of the parasite and stopped the research. Those tools failed and the public opinion turned against them. Malaria resurged, but it had adopted a new form that was even more complex to crack through.   Another attempt was made in 1990s where they urged people to use bed nets to prevent mosquito bites. But since they bring minor inconveniences and people don’t think much of this killer disease, it was futile to convince people to use bed nets. To sum it all, it takes money, time, resources and infrastructure to educate people, which is not cheap compared to the bed net. Any effort we make can backfire, since we are distributing tools that don’t make sense in people’s lives. Even by attacking directly the virus, we haven’t gotten rid of it. The solution, although it’s much more expensive and time draining, is changing people’s poor and rural way of life to slowly drive malaria out of society.

1. I agree with what the speaker says. I believe that instead of trying to attack the virus directly we should develop cheap tools and take the time to educate people and build convenient infrastructures so we can make a better environment and slowly drain out malaria. Take for example the National Malaria Eradicating program that was put in place in 1947 by the US. Their operations consisted of indoor residual spraying with DDT (a low-cost antimalarial tool) in epidemic areas, drainage, removal of mosquito breeding sites and spraying of insecticides. The risk of malaria transmission was slowly eliminated. In 1949, the US was declared free of malaria. The virus is still rampant as travelers carry the disease to the outside. There are other organisations that work in union to eliminate or control malaria in underdeveloped countries where the main issue is poverty. Lately, recent increases in resources, political will, and commitment have led to the possibility of the complete eradication of malaria.

1. Should the citizens in the developed world be concerned about these issues? (medically, ethically, or otherwise)

https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.html#

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