Child Malaria Deaths 'Slashed By Rainy Season Regimen' - Report

Giving antimalarial medicines to children monthly during the rainy season cut malaria deaths in children by 42%, making a case for wide implementation in malaria-endemic African regions, according to a study published on 05 December in the Lancets. In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued guidelines for implementing intermittent monthly drug administration, also known as Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC), in areas of high transmission that occurs during particular seasons to help prevent malaria in children under five years old. The study evaluates SMC implemented in the Sahel region, Burkina Faso, Chad, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria in 2015 targeting about 3.6 million children and an additional 7.6 million children in the seven countries in 2016. Malaria killed 643,000 people globally in 2019 and more than half of these were children under five, with the majority of the deaths occurring in West and Central Africa. Data collected from outpatient clinics also showed that malaria cases reduced by 25% in Nigeria in 2016 while in Gambia it went down by 55% in the same year.