Ethiopia Battles Rise in Malaria Cases

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia is rolling out the largest antimalaria effort in its history to fight an epidemic of the killer disease that has raised infection rates 10-fold in some regions, officials said on Monday.

In one region in the north of Ethiopia, authorities recorded 20,000 cases in June, 10 times higher than the same month last year, accompanied by 21 deaths.

UNICEF country representative Bjorn Ljungqvist said the government was working with various agencies "to roll out the largest antimalaria programme in Ethiopia's history."

The United Nations children's agency said it has imported some 2.5 million emergency treatments of artemisinin-containing combination therapy (ACTs), a potent new drug against the illness.

UNICEF said it had also bought about two million insecticide-treated bed nets to protect children against mosquito bites.

"We have been better prepared than at any other time to combat the epidemic because of the support we are getting from our partners," health minister Kabede Tadesse said.

"We are not 100-percent sure of how many people have died, but we have averted a major epidemic," he added.

Most malaria infections in Ethiopia are contracted between the months of June and October. The disease is prevalent in 75 percent of the Horn of Africa nation, with five million cases reported per year, according to Ethiopia's health ministry.

Health experts say most of the more than one million deaths caused each year around the world by malaria occur in Africa, costing the continent more than $12 billion every year.

Ljungqvist said UNICEF still requires $36 million in emergency funds to save the lives of Ethiopia's most vulnerable children from malnutrition and a range of diseases.

Nearly 17 in every 100 Ethiopian babies born never reach the age of five. The comparable figure is less than 1 in 100 in high-income countries.

Authorities blame the high mortality on malnutrition and infectious diseases, such as malaria and polio.

UNICEF has warned that the number of Ethiopian children dying from malnutrition would double to 170,000 this year if protective measures to safeguard their lives are not taken.