By Omotayo Edubi,
Climate Change as an issue focuses on the changes in the earth’s climate in regions, the effect on the environment and how it has affected humans and other living things negatively which is mostly caused by burnings which produces carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases, deforestation which effects reduces the quality of air due to the amount of trees, to mention a few.
As a result of all these factors some parts of Africa suffer the infection carried by the female Anopheles mosquitos which carry Plasmodium parasite that has ended the lives of many.
According to WHO, Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Tanzania, Mali, Mozambique, and Cameroon are the most affected Malaria countries in Africa, which may be due to the ever increasing temperature, riverine areas, deforestation, slumps and gutters in some part of the country which encourages breeding of mosquitoes in some part of the countries, thereby enabling the spread of mosquitoes faster.
Countries in the Northern Africa like Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, and in some southern part of Africa like Lesotho, Seychelles are not endemic like the rest of Africa.
In recent time a large number of partners and NGOs have swiftly increased the numbers of malaria control efforts. Between the year 2007-2018, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested US$1.8 billion which consists of all malaria R&D and supporting clinical development. And of recent, the Foundation has donated $83.5 million to fight malaria.
Bill Gates former wife, Melinda who once said ‘any goal short if eradicating malaria is accepting malaria is making peace with malaria, it is rich countries saying ‘we don’t need to eradicate malaria around the world as long as long as we have eliminated it in our own countries’ it is unacceptable, called for new and more effective resources for malaria control and research through the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. She furthered stated that the global spending on malaria control was short by $3.1 billon which was required annually.
Moving forward, the grant would include projects to expand access to existing prevention and treatment tools, hastened research, acquiring new tools, and strengthen global malaria advocacy.
She said, ’ The world is finally waking up to the malaria catastrophe, it is time to close the gap in funding, accelerate research, and work together in a more strategic way to strengthen the global malaria fight’.
She also applauded the recent increases in funding to eradicate malaria through various means. She however urged the world leaders to come together and find a synchronized strategy to combat malaria.
