In Madagascar, the Covid-19 leaves the field open to malaria

Text by: RFI Follow

The coronavirus has relegated to the background other other diseases, more recurrent, less atypical, starting with dengue, or even malaria. However, concerning the latter, the situation is alarming.

Publicity

With our correspondent in Madagascar, Sarah Tétaud

The month of May was marked by a sharp increase in the outbreaks of the malaria epidemic. At the end of May, the Ministry of Health already recorded 552 deaths for the beginning of 2020 alone, when it recorded 657 deaths for the whole year 2019. For specialists, the increase in the number of cases of infected people is partly attributable to Covid-19.

In Madagascar, the peak of malaria transmission normally occurs between March and April. In May, therefore, with the fall in temperatures, the curve for new cases should theoretically decrease. However, this year, several districts are still recording an increase in the number of cases, even in places usually spared.

Professor Milijaona Randrianarivelojosia is a malaria specialist and inspector in the office of the Minister of Health. "  This is an abnormal situation," he notes, " because even on the highlands and the highland markets, we are facing an upsurge if not epidemics of malaria. While these are places where you are supposed to have less malaria compared to the whole country. What is also abnormal is that the whole system suffers from a shortage of medicines. [Editor's note: due to a bad forecast] We want to aim for the elimination of the disease ; but instead, we are witnessing a resurgence of it. So we are facing a failure in the fight, for the moment.  "

For the time being, the Ministry of Health has just launched so-called presumptive treatments in the nine most affected districts, that is to say curative treatments for all the inhabitants, even for those undiagnosed.

“ These are places where more than half of the inhabitants are infected. So instead of wasting tests on who is infected or not, we immediately started presumptive treatments. It is assumed that everyone is exposed to the infection, so we treat for free by giving the curative medicine to all those who agree to take it. "

For the malariologist, this situation of resurgence for the year 2020 was foreseeable. The 2019 data indeed showed that in the middle of the southern winter (June, July, August), there were still persistence of transmission as well as outbreaks of epidemic on the island.

“ So we can easily understand that when it warms up with the onset of the rainy period, the fact that there are already parasites in the population only accelerates transmission. In fact, the situation we are enduring is the logical continuation of the epidemiological situation in 2019.  ”

Lack of usual means

For the researcher, this outbreak of cases on the island, if it were foreseeable, is also collateral damage to the Covid-19. According to him, the pandemic has affected the fight against malaria in the country.

“ The rapid test manufacturers don't make as many rapid tests for malaria. Perhaps they are absorbed in making other tools to fight the coronavirus. Second point : imagine a health center with a limited number of health personnel, in normal times and that some of these people must strengthen the team in the fight against the coronavirus. So some parts, it still penalizes daily activity.  "

Since the start of the pandemic, basic health structures have registered a drop in attendance. A fear of the virus which could be a cause of the increase in the number of deaths from malaria, a fatal disease which can be cured if treatment is taken on time.

Due to the coronavirus, the World Health Organization warns that the number of deaths from malaria on the continent could double this year to 769,000, a figure never recorded in twenty years.

► Read also: The fight against malaria could suffer from the Covid-19 pandemic

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• Madagascar
• Coronavirus
• Malaria

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