Malaria: Costs and Cures
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Malaria continues to be one of the world's most destructive and widespread diseases, killing around 500,000 people each year, almost all of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
On World Malaria Day we hear how it continues to cripple communities and speak to one Kenyan woman who lost a child to the disease. Ethiopia's former health minister, Dr Kesete Admasu, explains how outbreaks can have far-reaching economic consequences, depriving farms and other businesses of workers at vital times. He also describes his current work at Roll Back Malaria, a foundation aiming to tackle the disease through genetically engineered mosquitoes and new vaccines.
Plus, Kenyan infectious disease specialist Dr Faith Osier tells us about another malaria vaccine she's working on, and we hear about the smartphone that could alert people when the breeds of mosquitoes that carry the disease are nearby.
(Picture: A mother and her sick child during a malaria outbreak in DR Congo. Credit: John Wessels, Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:09.2 | Today, we're looking at the enduring human cost of one of the world's worst killer infections. |
| 0:15.6 | The baby was sick for two months. He would continue crying and crying. |
| 0:20.5 | We went to a private doctor and he said my baby |
| 0:23.5 | was suffering from malaria, but I couldn't afford his fees. Yes, malaria is our theme today. |
| 0:30.1 | Some say the disease is getting worse. What are some of the solutions? |
| 0:34.4 | Another fascinating space is to introduce a gene modification into the mosquitoes, |
| 0:42.0 | make sure that they are not capable of transmitting the parasite to humans. That's all to come in |
| 0:48.5 | Business Daily from the BBC. It is World Malaria Day today, a UN coordinated effort to focus all our attention on a killer disease. |
| 1:01.1 | It's one that continues to be one of the world's most pernicious and stubbornly destructive blights on humanity. |
| 1:07.7 | There are more than 200 million malaria cases worldwide every year, nearly |
| 1:11.3 | half a million deaths, 90% of those, in sub-Saharan Africa, and all of them, if we were |
| 1:17.6 | really to make this our priority preventable. We're going to be looking at how that prevention |
| 1:23.0 | might be possible in this program using the range of current treatments, but first let's hear from |
| 1:27.7 | one of those hundreds of millions of people living tragically in the diseases shadow. |
| 1:34.5 | My name is Janet Muenessi. I reside in area of Kibera slams. I work as a casual |
| 1:43.6 | labourer cleaning clothes. |
| 1:45.9 | I have two children at the moment. |
| 1:48.1 | My child fell ill with malaria. |
| 1:50.7 | During the period he was ill, doctors had gone on strike. |
| 1:54.6 | I went to hospital. |
| 1:56.0 | I did not get any doctor. |
... |
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