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Venezuela among the three countries where malaria cases grow
The coordinator for Strategies, Economics and the Global Elimination of Malaria WHO, Richard Cibulskis, said that among the reasons for the increase is the possibility that "governments have lowered controls this disease."
The Universal
December 22, 2012 | Guyana, Dominican Republic and Venezuela were the only countries in the world where malaria cases increased in the past decade, according to the World Malaria Report 2012, published by the World Health Organization (WHO) .
The coordinator for Strategies, Economics and Global Eradication of Malaria Programme WHO, Richard Cibulskis, explained that there are various reasons for this increase, among which highlighted the possibility that "governments have lowered this disease controls" .
Regarding the Dominican case, Cibulskis specified that one of the causes "may be the proximity to Haiti and imports from that country," said Efe.
Referring to the three cases, the report notes that the increased incidence of malaria infections observed in 2010 could not be real and due simply to the increase in resources for detecting cases.
Guyana went from 22,681 in 1990 to 29,471 cases in 2011, the Dominican Republic increased from 356 cases in 1990 to 1616 in 2011, and Venezuela, from 21,416 in 1992 to 45,824 in 2011.
In Haiti also saw an increase in cases, from the 4806 people infected in 1990 to 32,048 in 2011, but "the inconsistency of data over the years to identify trends prevents increase of cases in the last decade "says the text.
In that country there was an increase of 80,000 cases in 2010 as a result of the earthquake in January of that same year, but dropped to 32,000 a year later.
However, there are positive data in the region of the Americas, and that of the 21 countries where malaria is endemic, thirteen States declined by 75 the number of cases of the disease between 2010 and 2011, one of the Millennium Development Goals for 2015.
These thirteen countries are Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Suriname.
In addition, three-Colombia, Panama and Peru achieved a reduction of 64% and are on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal, and Brazil is expected to reach by 2015 a reduction in the incidence of the disease between 50 and 75%.
In these 21 countries, 30% of the population is at risk of becoming infected, while 8% is "high risk."
On the continent the number of malaria cases fell by half between 1990-when there were more than one million cases, and 2011, when there were less than 500,000, and the number of deaths rose from 439 at the beginning of the nineties to 113 in 2011.