Malaria cases rising dramatically

• Source: Global Times
• [02:14 August 04 2010]
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By Song Shengxia and Liu Chang

With Central Henan Province reporting a sharp rise in its number of malaria cases in the first half of this year, the national Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention plans to release additional figures Wednesday, and the results are expected to be similarly worrying.

What is being reported as a national rise in the disease is being attributed to an increase in the exchange of labor across provincial borders and a rise in international travel, a disease control expert said Tuesday.

Henan reported 40 cases in the first half this year, already seven cases more than were seen all of last year in the province, the local health bureau reported.

National malaria statistics from last year show that nearly half of all reported cases were "imported." That's an increase of 40 percentage points dating back to 2005, when just 10 percent of cases were "imported." Since China says it eliminated malaria by the late 1990s except in the provinces of Yun

 nan and Hainan, authorities refer to all cases reported outside those provinces as imported.

In all, the official number of malaria cases was 1,041 in 2009, with more than 400 cases imported. However, the total cases have plunged dramatically since 2005, when 3,747 people were infected, though just 296 of those were imported incidents, CDC data shows.

Zheng Canjun, an expert on malaria at the China CDC, told the Global Times that "the number of imported falciparum malaria cases is rising due to increased international travel and the import and export of labor."

In the capital of Henan, Zhengzhou No. 6 Hospital received 16 patients who developed imported malaria during the first half of this year. That figure includes a 37-year-old man who returned from Chad in Africa two weeks ago.

Dr. Sun Yan at the hospital told the Global Times that the man had a high fever and severe headache when he was sent to her hospital Saturday, and he also lapsed into a coma, though he started regaining consciousness this week.

"Due to the delay in his treatment at the beginning of the infection, he developed kidney failure and is still in danger," she said.