The Chief of the Entomology Branch of the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Audrey Lenhart, says inadequate funds is hampering the fight against malaria eradication.
She is, therefore, calling on governments across the globe to have the political will to increase funding for malaria control activities in their countries.
She said malaria elimination was feasible with adequate resources.
Dr. Lenhart made the call at a Seminar organised by the Department of Biomedical Sciences.
It was on the topic:"Optimising Control Strategies for Insecticide Resistance Mosquito Vectors of Arboviruses and Plasmodia".
Dr. Audrey Lenhart delivering the lecture
She said malaria is a potentially life-threatening mosquito-borne disease caused by a plasmodium parasite.
She stated that the use of proven tools and methods such as insecticide-treated bed nets, better case management of malaria in children and pregnant women, expanded use of preventative medicine during high malaria transmission season, and insecticide resistance monitoring had contributed to reduction of the disease burden in most countries.
"It is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito, which sees the parasite multiplying in the host's liver before infecting and destroying the red blood cell," she noted.
According to her, the standard vector control tools were not sufficient to eliminate the disease.
In the light of that, Dr. Lenhart added that: "novel interventions that address the growing spread of insecticide resistance and more “atypical” malaria vector behaviours are going to be really important to fill vector control gaps and therefore better protect people from the bites of infected mosquitoes."
Speaking at the seminar, the Director of the Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience (ACECoR), Prof Denis Aheto, who chaired the event, said the fight against the scourge of malaria was becoming herculean task and called for scientific research and genetic work to eliminate the disease.
He, however, stated that mosquitoes could be managed by practising proper environmental cleanliness.
Prof. Aheto asked the Department of Biomedical Sciences to take advantage of Dr. Lenhart to collaborate with CDC-USA.