Malaria Continues to Take Heavy Toll in Africa

The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said that malaria will claim the lives of over 700,000 children aged below five in Africa this year, the East African Standard newspaper reported on Monday.

Nicholas Alipui, UNICEF country representative in Kenya, said this means one child will die in every 30 seconds from the disease.

In a recently published document with the title of "Action and Progress in the Fight Against Malaria -- 2001", Alipui said the disease kills over 1 million people globally each year, or about 3, 000 people daily.

Nine out of every 10 cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa, Alipui said, adding that 40 percent of the world's population live in areas with high malaria prevalence.

"Infants born to mothers with malaria are more likely to have low birth weight, the single risk factor of death during the first months of life," he said.

The official noted that the greatest challenge in malaria control is that the cheapest anti-malaria drug chloroquine is rapidly losing its effectiveness in many endemic regions.

He emphasized that sleeping in insecticide-treated mosquito nets remains one effective solution to the problem.

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