Malaria accounts for 5% of kids’ deaths in PNG

National, Normal
Source:

WALLACE KIALA

THE deadly malarial parasite plasmodium vivax PV accounts for 5% of deaths in children in PNG every year, the medical symposium was told yesterday.
A current study by the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) in Goroka in collaboration with the Modilon General Hospital (Madang) and University of Western Australia, which started in October 2006 on severe malarial infections, made these findings known.
“The research which winds up at the end of the year found that out of the 274 children (aged between six months and 10 years) who had contracted severe malaria, four of them had died as a result,” team leader Laurens Manning said yesterday.
This accounted for 1% of the cases studied there over the past two years having died at different times at the north coastal Madang villages.
Mr Manning pointed out that like the continent of Africa, coastal PNG had intense plasmodium flaciparum transmission, but uniquely also had PV circulating.
He singled out that generally the spread and clinical patterns of illnesses in PNG are similar to Africa, but there are some major differences.
Mr Manning said that from a recent control survey which included two archived sets of data, more than 400 cases of severe childhood malaria and 400 controls had been collected from around Madang.
In addition, a retrospective meta-analysis comparing Asia-Pacific and Africa severe childhood malaria descriptive studies had been done.