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14 | Healthcare
Malaria - why does
a curable disease
continue to kill?
Despite all the progress made in medicine, one tiny
parasite continues to kill hundreds of thousands
every year. Dr Sneh Khemka, Medical Director at
Bupa International, asks why malaria is still such a
problem
A personal encounter Thirty minutes later, when the vehicle From the discovery of antibiotics to the use
About 10 years ago, I was working in the south arrived, I was confronted with a girl who was of X-rays, medical science has improved
of Papua New Guinea for a six month stint. about to die. She had started convulsions, her beyond measure throughout the 20th century.
The things I saw and treated as a junior doctor eyes rolled back in her head, uttering Countless illnesses that once killed can now be
there opened my eyes to a new world of incomprehensible noises. Her family was quiet cured. Some, like smallpox, have been entirely
medicine that I couldn't have previously around her, resigned to the fate they knew was wiped out.
imagined. about to come. Yet however powerful medicine has become,
But there is one very distinct memory that I Being a young doctor, I thought I could save there are many diseases that remain
have carried with me since then. It was just her. I carried her into the emergency room, untreatable. Despite millions being pumped
after lunch and I was manning the Emergency tried to get access to her veins so I could get into research, scientists are yet to create a
Department. We got a call on the radio from drugs into her, tried to intubate her so she vaccination for HIV/AIDS. And while great
one of the emergency vehicles that was could breathe, tried to calm her convulsions. progress has been made in managing cancer, a
bringing in a young girl with suspected But nothing worked. Within 30 minutes, I ‘cure’ is still out of our grasp.
malaria. She had had a fever for three days, and found myself performing the 3rd round of Right now, malaria kills nearly one million
her mother had walked her the 14 miles needed resuscitation, until I finally gave up and let her people a year - most of whom are just toddlers.
to get to the local health clinic. During the go. She was eight years old. She was also the The figure is so huge it’s hard to take in. Think
course of that walk, the malaria had travelled to first person I had ever seen die. of it like this: every 30 seconds a child dies from
her brain, and she was now delirious and very So why was malaria, this so treatable of malaria. Given the great strides that medicine
unwell. diseases, allowed to take this young girl's life? has made, why hasn’t science found a solution?
May 2009 Investment International www.investmentinternational.com
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