Audience: Middle and High School Students
Fact: Almost 300 million people in the world suffer from rare diseases. For 95% of these diseases, there is no cure. Photo by Louis Reed from Unsplash.
You feel a tiny pinprick on your skin. It is a mosquito bite, red and itchy, but not fatal. That is the first incorrect assumption. The bite, laced with the infected saliva of the mosquito, is small but dangerous. The parasite races through your system. You fall ill. Then you fall victim to the second incorrect assumption: that there is a cure. There is no cure, because there is no funding. There are thousands of these cases in malaria-endemic countries, because it’s not an important disease. Malaria is full of contradictions: it’s commonly spread through mosquito bites, which seem harmless, but is a deadly disease. It seems harmful enough to be the subject of highly-funded research, but it’s not. What is the truth about this disease?
Malaria is one member of a class of diseases called orphan diseases. These illnesses are lesser-known and are supposedly rare. Research organizations such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) redirect funding to more common diseases, and rare diseases become an afterthought. It’s easy to see the logic behind this choice, but when you consider the fact that a shocking 6-8% of the world’s population are victims of rare diseases, this reasoning becomes less sound. Patients that have rare diseases suffer acutely – due to the lack of funding and rarity of the cases, lesser-known rare diseases are very hard to diagnose. When they are successfully diagnosed, patients don’t have specifically designed treatments or therapy. This phenomenon is exaggerated in underdeveloped countries, where medical facilities are scarce and the already lacking treatments are almost nonexistent. Malaria is one of these diseases; according to the NIH, most cases of malaria are found in underdeveloped countries and in the poorer populations of the world.
To understand why malaria is underfunded, you first have to understand how and where the disease is transmitted. Malaria is a parasite that is mainly transmitted by the female marsh, or Anopheles, mosquito. The mosquito bites an infected person, then later bites an unwitting individual and injects the parasites via its contaminated saliva. It can also be transmitted in other ways, including blood transfusions and organ transplants, but transmission by mosquito bite is the most common – and the most infamous – method. Most cases occur in southern or central Africa, and are most severe in rural areas that lack access to healthcare. Malaria is a serious threat to many individuals; 608,000 people out of 294 million afflicted in 2022 are estimated to have died. The mortality rate is high, but the morbidity rate is even higher. This goes to show how malaria is dangerous in so many ways.
As previously mentioned, malaria is present in many underdeveloped countries, so funding is scarce. Research has shown that malaria is very prevalent in countries that are the most affected by poverty, although some wealthy countries still do suffer from it. It’s hard to conclude why exactly poorer countries suffer more, but scientists have surmised that it may be partially due to bad hygiene practices. Other diseases have also been worse in poorer countries, due to the decreased sewage treatment, contaminated drinking water, and lower-quality housing. Malaria could also affect poorer countries more severely because of their increased difficulty in eliminating mosquito populations. Many methods of eradication require financial resources and organization, which these countries have less of. Without the threat of elimination, mosquitoes evolve to become more efficient and have a more severe effect on humans and other organisms. It’s hard to combat such a disparity in funding between diseases and between countries, but prominent health authorities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) try to help by contributing to and encouraging research.
However, not all hope is lost for patients suffering from malaria. Firstly, tourists and citizens of malaria-endemic countries can take simple precautions to avoid suffering mosquito bites, which include nets, repellents, preventative medicines, and protective clothing. They can also use more aggressive protection, such as chemoprophylaxis drugs, which are typically prescribed to tourists for the mitigation and prevention of malaria. Additionally, the WHO recently recommended the use of a malaria vaccine, which has begun to gain attention and is expected to soon make a large-scale debut in Africa. After contracting the disease, there are also treatment options available, such as therapy medications. Unfortunately, some medications don’t fully work anymore – one common treatment, named artemisinin, has raised concerns. Numerous people have built up partial artemisinin resistance, which is a huge threat to malaria control efforts. Hopefully this problem will one day be resolved and a cure is found; we can only hope, since research efforts are constantly ongoing.
Malaria is painful, and there is simply not enough awareness about this disease. There’s not enough research or funding either. Thousands of people suffer from it without a cure or proper treatment, and it’s just as painful as the more common, funded diseases, such as infectious diseases. They are suffering without options. We need to spread knowledge about malaria. All patients deserve a cure, and right now, they’re not getting one. So when you finish reading this article, do something about it. Tell a friend what you learned. Add to the funding effort. Stay informed and aware. That is the path to improving the lives of all the patients who are suffering from malaria.
Bibliography:
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Mullin, Emily. “Top 15 NIH-Funded Disease Areas.” FierceBiotech, 22 July 2014, www.fiercebiotech.com/research/top-15-nih-funded-disease-areas. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
“Why Do 95% of Rare Diseases Have No Treatment?” Caixa Research, 23 Feb. 2022, caixaresearch.org/en/caixaresearch-debates-rare-diseases. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
World Health Organisation. “Malaria.” World Health Organization, WHO, 4 Dec. 2023, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.
Venkatesan, Priya. “The 2023 WHO World Malaria Report.” The Lancet, Mar. 2024, www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(24)00016-8/fulltext. Accessed 29 Aug. 2024.
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