Malaria kills 5,000 people every year

Malaria remains the main cause of death in Burkina Faso, affecting half a million people every year and killing 5,000, health officials said. According to the health ministry, 500,000 people in this land-locked West African state suffer from the mosquito-borne disease every year, 50,000 of them severely. Altogether 5,000 Burkinabe die every year as a direct result of malaria and the disease accounts for 43 percent of all medical consultations in the country. Children are particularly hard hit. According to the health ministry, 63.5 percent of all patients admitted to hospital for malaria are children under the age of five. "Malaria remains a major public health problem because it is still the main cause of admission, consultation and death in most of our health centres’’, the health minister Alain Yoda said recently. "Malaria is still an obstacle to development as it causes earlier deaths, prevent children from going regularly to school and brings about costs with medicine prices," he added. To tackle the problem the health ministry, in conjunction with the World Health Organisation (WHO) is distributing 50,000 free pesticide-impregnated mosquito nets to pregnant women in three districts of Burkina Faso. Chloroquine is still widely used to treat malaria patients, despite a resistance rate of eight to 12 percent. Last year the government launched a US $11.7 million campaign, funded by international donors, to combat malaria. This is aimed particularly at women and children under five. The campaign aims to provide protection for 60 percent of those considered most vulnerable to the disease by 2005.