UN warns severe malaria outbreak set to strike Ethiopia

Already battling malnutrition and food shortages caused by a two-year drought, Ethiopia is now facing its worst outbreak of malaria since 1998, according to United Nations agencies operating in the African country.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a statement in New York today saying that, after malnutrition, malaria will be the biggest health problem for Ethiopia over the next year.

High rates of malaria infections are already being reported in the Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities and People Regional state (SNNPR) and Tigray regions of Ethiopia, prompting the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to distribute $700,000 of medicines to those regions, with another $500,000 of medicines to follow.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has supplied drugs and laboratory supplies, while UNICEF has ordered 56,000 insecticide-treated nets to be distributed in the hardest-hit areas and also offered cash support for local anti-malarial activities.

OCHA says malaria epidemics tend to occur in cycles of five to eight years in Ethiopia, and this year’s high rainfall – which followed a two-year drought that affected 13 million people across the country – has created the conditions for intense transmission of the disease.

UN agencies report that the problem is exacerbated by a lack of anti-malarial medicines, malnutrition, population re-settlement and the collapse of regular vector control activities.