Durban conference focuses on malaria control

Director of the Medical Research Council's office of Malaria Research says they have recorded just over 10 000 malaria cases and about 147 malaria deaths in South Africa alone from the 2014 malaria season. 

Rajendra Maharaj says the aim is to achieve zero cases and zero deaths adding there are measures in place to reach that target by 2018. 

He says in the past there have been challenges including controlling the malaria vector which has become resistant to the insecticides used.

''With regards to the drug side effects a lot of work has been done to overcome the drug resistance that's exhibited by the malaria parasite there's a number of compounds that have been identified or potentially used as malaria chemotherapy. 

''We're quite excited about this because our last line of anti-malarial drug and if we have resistance to that then we have nothing left in our arsenal,'' he said.

(File photo)