Malaria still a big threat

Kenya is standing on shaky ground in the fight against two of her greatest health challenges: malaria and HIV/Aids.

Official figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicate that the country depends heavily on external sources for funding to drive the fight against the twin challenges, a trend which experts describe as ‘risky’.

According to the recently released World Malaria Report, 2009, the government only provided a paltry Sh2.4 million in 2008 out of the over Sh4.5 billion that went into financing malaria control. The bulk of these funds was sourced from donor agencies such as the United States’ President’s Malaria Initiative, the Global Fund and the WHO.

Similar trend

A similar trend has been witnessed over the years, with the government’s contribution towards malaria control remaining negligible, and analysts warn that this trend could spell doom to the country should the donors withdraw funding.

The country is presently grappling with a possible rejection of a US$650 million (Sh48.75 billion) funding appeal by the Global Fund over alleged mismanagement of past disbursements. This follows a rejection by the fund’s review board of an application for Kenya’s application for Round Nine, slated for this year.

Such an action would have far-reaching effects on the HIV/Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis programmes that the funds were earmarked for. Even though several donors, including the World Bank, Unicef and Unitaid, have pledged to step in, this threat has exposed the vulnerability of crucial health programmes that mainly thrive on donor funding.

However, Dr Andrew Githeko, a senior researcher at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) who is engaged in malaria research, defends the current state of affairs. As things stand, he says, the country cannot single-handedly tackle these diseases effectively.

“The burden is so huge that the country cannot afford to tackle the diseases by itself,” Dr Githeko argues. He adds that the role of donors is to bring down the disease to levels that the country would comfortably control.

Dr Githeko says that things are already moving in the right direction for malaria control. From a high of 70 per cent prevalence rates a few years ago, it now stands at 40 per cent.

He nonetheless admits that it is dangerous to rely on external assistance in the manner that the country is. Thankfully, the government is in the process of developing back-up strategies to boost funding for healthcare programmes to avert the probability of such a scenario occurring.

The head of the Promotive and Preventive Health Services, Dr Willis Akhwale, has in the past talked of plans to introduce innovative sources of funds to sustain the struggle towards meeting the target of eliminating malaria from the country by 2017.

The over-dependence on donor funding notwithstanding, progress has been made in the fight against malaria. The World Malaria Report,2009 praised the country’s efforts as having “shown evidence of wide scale implementation of malaria control activities to more than 50 per cent of the population at high risk”.

Huge strides

In his Jamhuri Day speech, President Kibaki acknowledged that the country had made huge strides in healthcare provision. The President said that the death rate of infants had fallen from 77 to 52 for every 1,000 live births. “Under-five mortality is also down from 115 to 74 per 1,000 births between 2003 and this year,” the Head of State said.