Malaria in Ethiopia

• 70,000 people are killed by malaria every year in Ethiopia, and two thirds of the population are in areas at risk of the disease
• The western lowlands are areas of highest risk (high temperatures and humidity throughout the year) and the central highlands are malaria-free (low temperatures, so less mosquitoes)
• Population movements occur between the highlands and lowlands during the rainy season and peak malarial transmission period, therefore causing more malarial transmission
• Malarial infection is also increased because harvesting often continues after sunset when mosquitoes are most active, and most migrant workers sleep in the fields overnight
• Irrigation projects, the cultivation of rice and urbanisation (garbage dumps and discarded containers) have expanded the breeding habitats and sites for mosquitoes
• Malarial parasites are becoming increasingly drug-resistant and the last significant breakthroughs were made nearly 50 years ago
• The poor are the hardest hit because they often live in houses with few barriers to mosquitoes
• Malaria causes absenteeism from work, slowing economic growth and reinforcing the cycle of poverty (in sub-Saharan Africa, this costs USD 12 billion a year)
• Malaria absorbs 40% of national health expenditure and accounts for 10% of hospital admissions
• Malaria can also reduce tourism and curtail inward investment
• Land degradation occurs in the highlands, which do not have as many resources as the lowlands, and have higher population densities, so farming resources are exploited
• Chloroquine has been used to treat malaria but excessive use can be toxic to humans, and there is some resistance to it
• Mefloquine was developed but this has psychological impacts on a significant percentage who take it
• By 2015, the Malaria Indicator Survey showed that more than 70% of households in malaria-endemic areas were protected by either insecticide-treated mosquito nets or indoor residual spraying
• In 2019, Ethiopia was on track to achieve the 2020 milestone of reducing the incidence of malaria by 40%