儿童疟疾死亡“被雨季削减措施”

[内罗毕]在雨季削减期间，每月为儿童提供抗疟药疟疾儿童死亡人数增长了42％，为疟疾流行非洲地区的广泛实施案例study成立。

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 inchildren五岁以下。

根据该研究的新闻稿，疟疾在2019年全球64.3万人丧生，其中一半以上是五岁以下的儿童，其中大多数死亡发生在西部和中非。柳叶刀。

“每月治疗都提供了四个星期的高度保护，在此期间，疟疾发病率降低了88％。”

Paul Milligan, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

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.

“This study showed that high, equitable coverage was achieved overall, but coverage varied, with some countries achieving better coverage than others,” says Paul Milligan, the study’s corresponding author and a professor of epidemiology and medical statistics at the UK-based London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

研究人员发现，由于两国在研究期间，布基纳法索和冈比亚的覆盖范围比尼日利亚更好。

米利根补充说：“每月治疗都提供了四个星期的高度保护，在此期间，疟疾发病率降低了88％。”

According to the study published this month (5 December),数据从门诊诊所收集的还表明，2016年尼日利亚的疟疾病例降低了25％，而冈比亚同年则下降了55％。

Milligan补充说，当WHO推荐SMC 2012年，西部和中非的国家迅速采用了新战略，但存在广泛实施的障碍，包括缺乏质量保证medicines并且缺乏funding。

The UNITAID-funded project sought to scale-up implementation of SMC on a large scale in the seven countries, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the intervention and to evaluate safety, feasibility, and effects of large-scale use on drug resistance.

In 2015, about 12.5 million treatments — combinations of antimalarial medications amodiaquine and sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine — were administered over four monthly cycles between July-August and October-November. The programme reached about 3.2 million children who were aged between three months and five years. In 2016, about 25.1 million treatments were administered by more than 47,000 distributors to 6.9 million children.

Milligan说，监测表明，耐药感染并不常见。严重的副作用很少见。

米利根（Milligan）认为，这些发现应支持确保SMC计划在西非和中非地区的所有儿童纳入疟疾的季节性传播，以防止每年从疟疾造成数千名不必要的儿童死亡。

“Drug resistance is a threat, and continued molecular monitoring is needed to provide early warning of loss of effectiveness, and pharmacovigilance [monitoring of drug safety] needs to be strengthened,” he tellsscidev.net。

Elizabeth Juma, principal research officer and public health specialist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, tellsscidev.net：“正在进行研究以查看除了在萨赫勒地区以外的其他领域，是否可以应用更多领域”。

As with many health interventions, reaching every person has challenges such as insufficient funding to recruit, train and supervise community health workers and purchase adequate medicines, Juma explains.

她补充说：“有时候找到所有的孩子是一个挑战。”游牧民族和因不安全感或自然灾害而流离失所的人群。

Juma says that increased community engagement and availability of adequate resources to reach all those who need SMC could help fight malaria in Africa.

这件作品由Scidev.net的撒哈拉以南非洲英语桌子制作。