{"id":613,"date":"2017-10-18T18:24:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=613"},"modified":"2019-08-26T17:41:48","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T16:41:48","slug":"malaria-kill-african-child-every-30-seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/malaria-kill-african-child-every-30-seconds\/","title":{"rendered":"Does malaria kill an African child every 30 seconds?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Researched by Vinayak Bhardwaj<\/strong><\/address>\n

With the outbreak of zika virus disease in South America, attention turned away from the\u00a0world\u2019s most deadly mosquito-borne disease: malaria.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s no longer the leading cause of death among children in sub-Saharan Africa, malaria\u00a0still accounts for 10% of child deaths. In raising awareness, organisations in this field therefore often focus on malaria\u2019s impact on young children, who are\u00a0more vulnerable to the disease.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the science news website\u00a0Science Daily bulletin\u00a0introduced a report on a new malaria treatment strategy by claiming that \u201cone child dies from malaria every 30 seconds in Africa\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shortly afterwards, the leader of the\u00a0US President\u2019s Malaria Initiative, rear admiral Tim Zeiner,\u00a0claimed in an article\u00a0that \u201cin Africa, a child dies every minute because of [malaria]\u201d.<\/p>\n

Following that, the\u00a0African Leaders Malaria Alliance, a coalition of 49 African heads of state and governments,\u00a0was quoted\u00a0as saying \u201can African child still dies every two minutes from [malaria].\u201d The statistic is also listed on their\u00a0official malaria fact-sheet.<\/p>\n

So which time interval is it?<\/p>\n

WHO website contains \u2018transcription error\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Professor Sanjeev Krishna\u00a0of the Institute for Infection and Immunity at\u00a0St George\u2019s University\u00a0in London, whose study was cited in the Science Daily article, told Africa Check: \u201c[This is a] well-accepted statistic\u2026 Visit the WHO website on malaria\u2026 [where] you can verify [it] independently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zeiner from the US\u00a0President\u2019s Malaria Initiative did not get back to us.\u00a0The African Leaders\u2019 Malaria Alliance said that their figure was calculated\u00a0from a statistic listed on the World Health Organisation\u2019s website\u00a0which said: \u201cIn 2015, about 305,000 African children died before their fifth birthdays.\u201d<\/p>\n

The director of ALMA, Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, told Africa Check: \u201cWith 525,600 minutes in a year, this works out on average to one child every two minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the WHO\u2019s 2015 malaria report\u00a0has a different figure. It stated that on estimate\u00a0a total of 305,000 children under 5 died worldwide of malaria last year, with 292,000 of those deaths occurring in Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Estimated number of malaria deaths in children under 5 in 2015\u00a0<\/strong>(WHO)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Region<\/strong><\/td>\nNumber of deaths<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Africa<\/td>\n292,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Americas<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eastern Mediterranean<\/td>\n2,200<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
European<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
South-East Asia<\/td>\n10,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Western Pacific<\/td>\n1,500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Africa Check contacted the lead author of the world malaria report, Dr Richard Cibulskis. He said the figure of 305,000 deaths must have been a \u201ctranscription error\u201d, adding that \u201cthe number on the WHO website\u2026 appears to refer to the global total rather than [deaths of] African children\u201d.<\/p>\n

(Note: We asked the WHO whether they will correct the error on their website, but have not yet heard back from them.)<\/em><\/p>\n

True extent of malaria difficult to calculate<\/strong><\/p>\n

The WHO malaria report focuses on children under the age of 5 because this age group\u00a0accounted for an estimated three-quarters of the world\u2019s malaria deaths\u00a0in 2015.<\/p>\n

Deaths were calculated\u00a0using two methods. In countries where the quality of death certificates is acceptable, that data was used. However, in countries where this isn\u2019t the case and the number of malaria deaths is high, the data came from\u00a0verbal autopsies.<\/p>\n

A verbal autopsy is typically conducted by a trained interviewer using\u00a0a questionnaire\u00a0to collect information about the signs and symptoms of someone who died from a person familiar with the deceased.<\/p>\n

The WHO malaria report is considered \u201cthe best source of data on deaths due to malaria\u201d by the principal investigator of the\u00a0Malaria Clinical Research Group\u00a0at the University of Cape Town. But professor Karen Barnes said that sourcing data from different health authorities introduces variation.<\/p>\n

This is because not \u201call countries record malaria deaths in the same way \u2013 it is sometimes misclassified and thus not recorded correctly\u201d, the deputy director of the malaria programme in South Africa\u2019s national health department, Dr Eunice Misiani, told Africa Check.<\/p>\n

The true extent of malaria\u2019s impact on Africa is therefore difficult to calculate, but \u201cavailable data may not be too far wrong as some factors increase and other factors decrease notification, which may balance each other out to some extent\u201d, Barnes said.<\/p>\n

So how often does an African child die of malaria?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Due to the variation in data from across the continent, the WHO estimates the highest and lowest number of deaths that can be attributed to malaria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Number of malaria deaths in children under 5 in Africa<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Middle estimate<\/td>\n292,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lowest estimate<\/td>\n212,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Highest estimate<\/td>\n384,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Using this data we can calculate how often, on average, an African child died of malaria in 2015. This works out to just under every 2 minutes when using the middle estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Middle estimate<\/td>\n1 min 48 sec<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lowest estimate<\/td>\n2 min 28 sec<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Highest estimate<\/td>\n1 min 22 sec<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n


\nConclusion: Claim that an African child dies of malaria every 30 seconds is incorrect<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the significant progress made in eradicating malaria \u2013 with the total number of malaria deaths\u00a0dropping from an estimated\u00a0764,000 in 2000 to 395,000 in 2015\u00a0\u2013 African children under 5 continue to make up the majority of deaths.<\/p>\n

However, it is certainly not once every 30 seconds, as claimed in the Science Daily Bulletin. Similarly, the figure used by the leader of the US President\u2019s Malaria Initiative of \u201ca child\u2019s death every minute\u201d is incorrect, even if one uses the lowest possible estimate.<\/p>\n

The African Leaders\u2019 Malaria Alliance\u2019s figure of a death every 2\u00a0minutes falls within the latest estimates that the World Health Organisation calculated, which ranges from every minute and 22 seconds to every 2 minutes and 28 seconds.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Africa Check<\/a> and we have their permission to republish.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researched by Vinayak Bhardwaj With the outbreak of zika virus disease in South America, attention turned away from the\u00a0world\u2019s most deadly mosquito-borne disease: malaria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"hannibal_claim_source":"","hannibal_source_label":"","hannibal_card_color":"blue","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[121],"tags":[80,81,79],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[873],"class_list":["post-613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-african-child","tag-health","tag-malaria"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-9T","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":873,"user_id":10,"is_guest":0,"slug":"dubawa","display_name":"Dubawa","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f70a877f6d81734de0ca299eabb33d20687f41f5a4cb83ae8d754fc9412ee293?s=96&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":"Strengthening Investigative Journalism for the fight against corruption in Nigeria."}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/children_n_bad_water.jpg?fit=385%2C241&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=613"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}