Malaria eradication, for future generations - WHO

05.11.2009

World Health Organisation (WHO), on Wednesday, said eradicating of malaria was only a thing for the future during a meeting of experts in Kenya to find a lasting solution to the menace of malaria worldwide.

WHO’s Global Malaria Director at Geneva, Dr. Robert Newman, in his assessment of the situation, said that what was possible for now was the control of the disease, which is still very prevalent in Africa.

Describing malaria eradication as a feat for the future, he said sustainable financial and political commitments of African governments were central to making the eradication of malaria from the world a reality.

Though malaria vaccine was ultimately important for the eradication of malaria, he emphasised the need for more financial support for the development of new tools to make its eradication possible.

According to him: “To get us to the last miles, we need new tools. They may be vaccines; they may be tools that would break the foot of the mosquito or even ones we have not thought of yet.”