Malaria pregnancy risk - millions affected

Tuesday January 26th, 2010

As many as 60 per cent of pregnant women worldwide are at risk from malaria, researchers warned today.

Women are particularly vulnerable to the disease during pregnancy because of reduced immunity.

The estimate comes from the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium based at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.

The researchers say they are the first to estimate the worldwide risk to pregnancy, outside of Africa.

However they do not yet know exactly how many women do contract the disease during pregnancy.

To reach their conclusions, they identified how many pregnancies occurred within the malaria-riven regions of those countries afflicted by the disease.

Professor Feiko ter Kuile said: "We now have a reliable estimate of the numbers at risk globally from malaria in pregnancy, which on its own is an important spur to further investment to tackle this problem.

"More significantly, the study is an important first step towards a spatial map of the burden of malaria in pregnancy and should help policy makers allocate resources for research and control of this important public health problem."

Dellicour S, Tatem AJ, Guerra CA, Snow RW, ter Kuile FO (2010) Quantifying the Number of Pregnancies at Risk of Malaria in 2007: A Demographic Study. PLoS Med 7(1)

Tags: Africa | Childbirth and Pregnancy | UK News | Women’s Health & Gynaecology | World Health

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