WHO paper renews focus on malaria patients in Africa

The World Health Organisation – which this week acted against Sars – is highlighting a second lethal disease that threatens 20 per cent of the global population and is in 100 countries. It has been claiming lives for millenniums and still kills more than one million people every year.

The malaria parasite has developed widespread resistance to old chloroquine-based drugs, which have often been used incorrectly, while mosquito nets treated with insecticide are in short supply. Three thousand African children die of malaria every day, the WHO says.

The WHO recommends the artemisinin-based combination therapy to treat malaria but these drugs cost between $1 and $3 (65p to £1.95) per adult dose, while the chloroquine-based treatment costs 10p per dose.

Dr Jane Crawley, an adviser to the WHO's malaria department, told a conference in London called to mark the publication of the Africa Malaria Report – published by WHO and Unicef – that mosquito nets could have a big impact but added that less than 3 per cent of children were using them.

Dr Crawley said malaria in Africa was a much bigger tragedy than the newer and more eye-catching Sars. She said: "Sars is affecting us, malaria affects them. Unfortunately people are more concerned about 'us' than 'them'."

The charity Africa Fighting Malaria said African countries were undermining efforts to control malaria by taxing nets.