Chinese medical workers help fight malaria

Significant progress achieved by mass drug administration, building bridges of trust and understanding

Across the dense, tropical forest in the African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, a team of Chinese scientists is waging an all-out fight against malaria — one of the deadliest diseases for local residents.

Since 2017, they have visited every single one of the country's nearly 300 villages to grasp a clear understanding of the infection's spread, promoted new medicines and trialed innovative ways to deliver them, as well as trained public health professionals.

"In the past, local children were sometimes warned against wandering around due to the high risk of catching malaria. A parent who has four children once told me that hospitals felt like their second home due to the rampant spread of the disease," said Li Mingqiang, a researcher at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine's Artemisinin Research Center in Guangdong and head of the first team dispatched to the island country.

Thanks to anti-malaria programs led by researchers from the institute based in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, participating villages have seen sharp drops in incidence rates of the illness.

"Nowadays, an increasing number of families feel much more reassured letting their kids outside their home, and the lively scene of healthy children enjoying themselves means a lot to us medical aid workers," he said.

Malaria is a potentially life-threatening disease that spreads to humans through mosquito bites. It is now curable and preventable with new bug sprays, bed nets as well as a growing variety of treatments and vaccines.

Globally, there are around 240 million malaria cases annually, and it kills more than 600,000 people each year. The majority of malaria infections and mortalities are confined to African countries, according to data from the World Health Organization.

"When we first arrived in the nation in early 2017, we knew little about the situation on the ground, and residents there knew nothing about our anti-malaria plans. So our biggest challenge in the beginning was how to communicate with each other and cooperate effectively," said Li.

At the core of the team's malaria-fighting strategy is a self-developed medicine that incorporates the traditional Chinese medicine compound of artemisinin with piperaquine.