MAAME Esi, 17, a single mother with her baby strapped behind her back moves from one pharmaceutical shop to another at the Okaishie Drug Lane in Accra in search of malaria treatment for herself and also the six-month-old baby.

She has only $3 for a malaria drug that is the highest price many people pay for such drugs, which is just a monotherapy course of artesunate its counterpart the ammodiaquin tablets certified by health researchers as the most effective combination for the treatment of malaria.

Owners of the pharmacy shops within the drug lane have resorted to stocking and selling more of the monotherapy malaria drugs which is cheaper and meets the pockets of many people. The combination therapy of ammodiaquin and antesenate sells at $9.

Studies have established that patients who took monotherapy drugs complained that they felt unwell even after completing the course of treatment.

Dr Alex Dodoo, the President of the Ghana Pharmaceutical Association, acknowledges the relative expensive cost of malaria treatment, to some in the cities but maintains that the situation does not relate to only people in Accra, but is widespread, extending to rural districts.

Dr Dodoo said the administration of a single drug therapy instead of the combination therapy of artesunate ammodiaquin often led to ineffective cure or drug resistance.

He hoped that through the WHO, the manufacturers could be persuaded to reduce the cost of the malaria drugs.

Could the discovery of a malaria vaccine resolve these challenges permanently?
Malaria, the researchers say, kills over one million children every year and 90 per cent of the malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.

A child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

Ghana’s Ministers of Health, Major Courage Quarshigah says the country spends about 770 million a year in the management of malaria.

Even though, the cost of malaria drugs could be cheaper than hypertensive drugs, many people in Ghana cannot afford the $9 cost of the combination therapy.

The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is seeking ways to make such drugs available, but it faces its own challenges of availability at service points.

Part of the solution to this problem is for governments in Africa to channel more resources to malaria control and management.

Dr Constance Bart-Plange, Programme Manager of Ghana’s National Malaria Control Programme, told journalists in June, 2008, that about 99 per cent of resources for malaria control are derived from donors.

Again, the one per cent of the budgetary allocation from the District Assembly Common Fund meant for malaria control had also been reduced to point five (0.5) per cent and does not augur well for the sustainability of the programme.

Happily, Dr Daniel Ansong of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Medical Sciences is confident that Africa is at the verge of discovering safe and effective malaria vaccine which has the potential to save thousands of lives.

He was speaking at a forum organised by the Africa Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) in collaboration with Malaria Clinical Trials Alliance and Malaria Consortium of Mozambique as part of Malaria Day which fell on April 25 this year. His topic was: “The Search for Malaria Vaccine, Where Are We Now?”

“We are closer than ever before to having safe and effective malaria vaccine that will make a positive impact on the economy and the capacity of our health system”, Dr Ansong said. “The search of vaccine in Ghana and other African countries is progressing well.”

Currently, the vaccine is being tried in Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Gabon, Burkina Faso and Mozambique.

The trial started in Ghana in 2006 by the Kintampo Health Research Network and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research is expected to enter the third phase this year.

The malaria vaccine, it is hoped would help a great deal in helping to combat malaria. Other measures such as the use of insecticide treated nets even though had proved effective are not widely patronised by many as expected.

Again, the Food and Drugs Board have found some brands of mosquito coils on the market which some ignorantly buy to be sub-standard.

Efforts by developed countries and private institutions such the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation towards malaria research and the development of malaria vaccine are worthy of commendation.

Malaria vaccine certainly holds key to the effective prevention of the disease which had sent many to untimely deaths and also ease great financial burden on families.