Burma Related News

by an RNW reporter

According to the World Health Organisation, malaria and AIDS are the two most devastating global health problems of our time. Together they cause more than four million deaths a year. They are both diseases of poverty and both of them cause poverty.

However, according to Professor Willem Takken, one of the pre-eminent malaria specialists in the Netherlands, the overall effect of malaria is greater than that of AIDS. This is chiefly because HIV/AIDS has also hit the western world, so there has been a stronger push to come up with successful treatments for the disease, which is not the case for malaria. Professor Takken explains:

"There are five to six million people who get malaria every year. A million die from it every year, but for those who don't, it still makes them seriously ill for a couple of weeks which means that they can't work."

And for people who are living on a daily wage, the loss of a week's wages has a direct impact on the family's food input.

Médecins Sans Frontières

In Myanmar, malaria is cited by medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as being the number one cause of death. MSF has been fighting the disease for years in Myanmar where it now has 30 clinics that treat some 200,000 patients. Dr Frank Smithuis, himself a malaria specialist, is MSF Head of Mission in Yangon, the country's capital. He says:

"The WHO says that there are 500,000 malaria patients in Myanmar, but I know for a fact that's not true. I estimate it to be closer to ten million."

Mr Smithuis backs up the enormous discrepancy with the figures of MSF's own centre of operations in Rakhine state.

"Previously the clinics in this area used to see 30 patients a month. Since we started our diagnosis and treatment - which we give at a very low price of about eight cents per treatment - the number of patients seeking help in our clinics has increased 30-50 fold. So we saw the numbers of malaria patients increasing from 30 to 1800 in a month."

Herculean task

The rise was so noticeable that at one stage he was asked jokingly by the country's Minister of Health "What the hell are you doing here, because malaria is increasing." Dr Smithuis grins ironically, adding "OK, so we both agreed that MSF is not increasing malaria, just improving its identification and treatment."

In a country like Myanmar, where most people live in remote villages, hours away from the nearest road, treating malaria is a formidable challenge. MSF dispatches teams of medical staff by boat to the most inaccessible areas, and they work with government as well as private clinics, trying to reach people who otherwise wouldn't have access to treatment.

But it's a Herculean task. 30 clinics don't even cover half of one state of the country. The national health budget of Myanmar is tiny and despite the evident need, the country receives the lowest ratio of overseas aid. Dr Smithuis puts the problem succinctly:

"The people of Myanmar deserve more support from the international community."