The world’s worst ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 8,000 people, is masking a far greater death toll as hospitals across west Africa struggle to cope with the region’s other deadly disease: malaria.
The mosquito-borne infection, which kills up to 584,000 people a year, can easily be defeated with a cocktail of drugs that is widely available in west Africa ”” but patients in the countries worst affected by ebola are now terrified of hospitals because of a widespread belief that medical staff are spreading the disease, according to Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, head of the UN’s Roll Back Malaria Partnership.
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