(20 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wakiso, Uganda – 22 July 2025
1. Drone shot of Wakiso town
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kampala, Uganda – 11 August 2025
2. SOUNDBITE (Luganda) Alice Nekesa, malaria victim:
++PARTLY OVERLAID WITH SHOT 1, 3 AND 4++
"I was found to have malaria that had progressed to severe malaria. I did not know I had malaria and by the time I was diagnosed, my pregnancy had already been affected. My pregnancy was 4 months, almost 5 and I had a miscarriage.
It is all because of not treating the malaria in time."
3. Various of Nekesa washing clothes
4. Nekesa hanging a piece of cloth
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kampala, Uganda – 23 August 2025
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Patience Akumu, Advocacy Manager at Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM):
++PARTLY OVERLAID WITH SHOT 6, 7, 8 AND 9++
"Now that we have this new medicine, we are going to be able to respond to a need – to a gap. Otherwise, before, the risk was that when you are not giving accurate treatment, we are seeing the rise of anti-malarial resistance. Initially, babies were being treated with medicine that was meant for children over 5 kilograms and yet, we do know, that when it comes to malaria, the people who are most affected are young children and infants, and babies who are under 5 kilograms – babies whose liver is not yet developed."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wakiso, Uganda – 23 July 2025
6. Nurse holding vaccine
7. Nurse vaccinating a child
8. Various of women with babies waiting to receive treatment
9. Drone shot of health facility
STORYLINE:
Alice Nekesa did not know she was infected with malaria-causing parasites until it was too late.
She was in the fourth month of pregnancy last year when she started bleeding, a miscarriage later attributed to untreated malaria in her.
The Ugandan farmer said recently that she regretted the loss of what would have been her second child “because I didn’t discover malaria and treat it early.”
Variations of such cases are commonly reported by Ugandan health workers who witness stillbirths or feverish babies that die within days from undiagnosed malaria.
The deaths are part of a wider death toll tied to mosquito-borne disease, the deadliest across Africa but one easily treated in adults who seek timely medical care.
Until recently, a major gap in malaria treatment has been how to look after newborns and infants infected with malaria but not yet strong enough to receive regular medication.
That changed last month when Swiss medical regulators approved medicine from Basel-based pharmaceutical company Novartis for treatment of babies with body weights between 2 and 5 kilograms (nearly 4½ to 11 pounds).
Swissmedic said the treatment, a sweet-tasting tablet that dissolves quickly in small amounts of water, was approved in coordination with the World Health Organization under a fast-track authorization process to help developing countries access much-needed treatment.
Africa’s 1.5 billion people accounted for 95% of an estimated 597,000 malaria deaths worldwide in 2023, according to the WHO. More than three-quarters of those deaths were among children.
In Uganda, an east African country of 45 million people, there were 12.6 million malaria cases and nearly 16,000 deaths in 2023. Many were children under 5 and pregnant women, according to WHO.
Nigeria, Congo and Uganda — in that order — are the African countries most burdened by malaria.
The drug approved by Swiss authorities, known as Coartem Baby in some countries and Riamet Baby in others, is a combination of two antimalarials.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/e1f4eeda6e4f4a7f90b0ca7319a2a26d
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in August 25, 2025, 3:05 am.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
