About CMAME
It is still malaria that is one of the oldest infectious diseases in Africa that causes suffering and death and imposes unacceptable financial burdens on population in endemic countries. Each year, between 300 million and 500 million cases of clinical malaria and more than 1 million malaria related deaths are reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) globally, with about 4/5ths of this occurring in Africa south of Sahara costing the continent more than USD 12 billion annually, slowing economic growth in countries by 1.3% per year. In line with the above indicated scenario, children less than two years of age and pregnant women are the most vulnerable groups to the malaria infection. In Africa, one out of five deaths (7 full jumbo jets per day) among children under five is attributed to malaria. Resources to address the malaria burden are not proportionate to the extent of the devastation that the disease wreaks in everyday lives of Africa. This needs to change if we are serious about reducing the burden and its impact on the social and economic wellbeing and health of African people. Ethiopia ranks one of the world’s poorest nations and has extremely poor health status related to other low-income countries. This low economical status of the people has inflected the pattern of disease occurrence like malaria in the country.
Almost 75% of the Ethiopia land is malarious and 68% of the population is estimated to be at risk. Due to the diverse eco-climatic conditions in the country, the malaria transmission pattern is characterized by high variability by time and place and is largely seasonal. As a result of this variability and lack of constant exposure to malaria, protective immunity of the population is low. The main malaria transmission season coincides with the major agricultural season. The burden of the disease, therefore, affects not only the health and welfare of the community but also agricultural productivity challenging the move towards food security at household level. Moreover, during peak malaria transmission season and epidemics, the diseases affect school attendance and performance both by students and teachers. In order to alleviate the impact of malaria on the health and socio-economic endeavors of the country, the Government of Ethiopia has been implementing malaria prevention and control activities with in the framework of the integrated health service delivery system as guided by the health policy and the health sector development program in the country. Cognizant of the health and socio-economic of the effects of malaria on the development of the country, the Government of Ethiopia has been allocating resource for the prevention and control of malaria. However, as the potential health service coverage in the country is low (61% including service by health posts) and resource limitations, the malaria prevention and control activities has never been sufficient to address the problem. In order to substantiate the efforts of the Ethiopian Government and other partners engaged in the fight against malaria, Coalition of Media Against Malaria in Ethiopia (CMAME) was established with the support of Malaria Consortium (MC)/Coalition Against Malaria in Ethiopia (CAME) in September 2006. All the attendees, media people from all regions and administrations, of the Workshop on “Reporting on Malaria” that took place from September 22-26, 2006, at Global Hotel, in Addis, recommended the establishment of CMAME.
Cognizant to the multiple challenges and constraints those have remained to be barriers for effective malaria prevention and control program in Ethiopia, it is the right time to establish CMAME as it will contribute in the forthcoming millennium to strengthen the malaria prevention and control activities, and to utilize the opportunity created by the global movement to Roll Back Malaria and the renewed commitment of donors and partners.
