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AFP/Getty
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The ministry of health
says the disease has killed more than 700 people since the beginning of the
year - an average of more than 10 deaths every day.
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Youssou
Ndour is backing a new US$32 million initiative to combat malaria in Senegal
|
Health
Minister Josiane Nijimbere said regions in the north and north-east of Burundi
were most affected.
Climate
change and the introduction of rice crops on higher land have been suggested as
causes for the rise in malaria cases, which have been increasing since 2013.
Some
8m people from a total population of 11m suffered malaria last year.
The regions most affected
by malaria are also the most food insecure. Earlier this year, the UN said 3m
Burundians were in need of food assistance.
Musician Youssou
Ndour Backs Senegal's War On Malaria
AFP
reports that Youssou Ndour, Senegal's most famous musician, is throwing his
weight behind malaria eradication in his homeland to combat an illness that has
for too long held back Africa's economic development.
Malaria
killed more than 400,000 people last year, according to the World Health Organization
(WHO) -- the vast majority of them children living in sub-Saharan Africa.
Ndour
has performed and toured since the 1970s, blending Senegalese music with soul,
hip-hop and jazz to international acclaim, but has also become known for his
work as a longtime campaigner for malaria prevention.
The
disease remains all too common in Senegal, despite a government pledge to
eradicate it by 2018, with 500,000 recorded Senegalese cases in 2015, according
to the WHO.
"It's
first of all a serious public health problem. But we also see the economic
impact around it and the weaknesses we have at the level of development in
Africa because of malaria," Ndour told AFP in an interview in Senegal's
capital Dakar.
A
new US$32 million initiative is aiming to finally stamp out malaria in the west
African nation, to which Ndour has lent his support.
More
than 2.5 million people will receive mosquito nets impregnated with
insecticide, 1.6 million rapid diagnosis tests will be distributed and 70,000
doses of anti-malarial drugs will be delivered as part of the project, along
with advice and training for healthcare workers.
The
Lives and Livelihoods Fund, which targets health projects in Muslim-majority
nations and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several Gulf
states, is backing the project with the Senegalese government.
Ndour
speaks with anger about the children's lives lost needlessly to the disease
over the years.
He
believes the Senegalese have frequently minimized malaria's deadly impact in
the past, allowing the parasite carried by mosquitos to wreak damage that is
far more dangerous to children.
"Here
there are a lot of people who will tell you 'oh I just have a touch of flu'
while in fact they have malaria," Ndour said, sporting a white and black
checked traditional Senegalese robe.
The
risks are not only to health, he emphasized. "When children don't go to
school, there are no jobs, you can't work. So poverty is always hovering in the
background."
He
noted the strong link between malaria and poverty -- the disease has a US$12
billion impact on the global economy every year, hitting sub-Saharan Africa's
fragile economies by far the hardest.
Senegal
has made huge gains in reducing malaria rates in recent years, which the
project aims to consolidate to put the country on the path to complete
eradication.
- Star power -
Ndour
remains a massive star at home, where his music blares from seemingly every
taxi and corner shop, while he is best known in the West for "Seven
Seconds", his 1994 duet with Neneh Cherry.
Using
his fame as a weapon, he has participated in prevention campaigns aimed at
getting families to sleep under mosquito nets, while promoting his cause abroad
with giant concerts with fellow African and international musicians.
Ndour
has toured the world for the last five decades, but old images he was shown in
the US stick out when he tries to picture an Africa without malaria.
"They
showed me these old photos in Washington, and at the time there were mosquitos.
How come (the disease) is gone?" he asked himself, learning that the
government and citizens had mobilized together to beat malaria after World War
II.
"With
the example of Washington, tomorrow we should be able to say: Senegal, Burkina
Faso, Mali, that the problem in these places has been fixed to allow these
African nations to take off," the singer added.
Efforts
must be far more concerted now that the end is in sight, he believes.
"We have to pick up
the pace to actually eradicate malaria," he emphasized. "I hope to
see it happen in my lifetime."
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