[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.51]this is the Health Report.
[00:04.60]Malaria kills about 200,000 newborn babies
[00:09.52]and 10,000 new mothers every year.
[00:12.87]Most of these death are in Africa.
[00:16.41]Malaria can also cause mothers
[00:19.32]to lose their babies before they are born,
[00:22.06]or cause a baby to be born early.
[00:25.84]These are low cost ways to prevent malaria infection.
[00:31.27]But a new study find
[00:33.56]that many pregnant women do not receive these interventions.
[00:38.20]For example, for the past 20 years,
[00:42.34]the World Health Organization (WHO) has advised pregnant women
[00:46.62]in areas with high rates of malaria
[00:49.68]to sleep on the bed nets treated with insecticide.
[00:54.19]The WHO also advised them to get what is known as
[00:59.03]intermittent preventive treatment, or IPT.
[01:03.06]This treatment involves take in a low cost
[01:06.89]anti-malaria drug at certain times in the pregnancy
[01:11.04]in an effort to prevent the disease.
[01:14.01]The WHO recommends that
[01:17.41]pregnant women receive the medicine
[01:19.50]usually around 4 times during visits to a clinic.
[01:24.63]Many pregnant women and new mothers
[01:28.66]go to medical clinics in sub-saharan Africa.
[01:32.39]Yet researchers say only about 21 percent
[01:36.99]receive intermittent preventive treatment
[01:40.30]during their pregnancy,
[01:42.09]and less than 40 percent are given protective bed nets.
[01:47.36]Jenny Hill from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
[01:52.29]is program manager for a research partnership
[01:56.32]called the Malaria and Pregnancy Consortium.
[02:00.10]Miss Hill says a review of 98 studies
[02:04.59]found a number of barriers to malaria prevention,
[02:08.48]these included unclear policy and guidance
[02:12.61]from government ministers and health care officials.
[02:16.30]Other problems include drug shortages,
[02:19.69]a lack of clean water,
[02:21.58]and confusion about how to administer IPT.
[02:26.20]"They were unclear on when to give it
[02:29.47]whether it could be given to women on an empty stomach,
[02:32.47]whether it should be given under observation in clinics,
[02:36.37]and so on and so forth."
[02:38.21]Miss Hill says free intermittent preventive treatment
[02:42.04]is the policy in 37 countries across the region.
[02:45.87]But the researchers found that anti-natal clinics or ANCs
[02:51.01]may charge fees,
[02:53.30]that can keep some preganat women from returning.
[02:56.68]Miss Hill says countries can reduce the number of deaths
[03:01.71]and early births due to malaria
[03:04.69]by following the WHO policy
[03:07.44]on intermittent preventive treatment.
[03:10.08]She says governments should also provide more money in their budgets
[03:15.34]for anti-malaria drug, so there are no shortages.
[03:19.39]Also they should publicize the importance
[03:23.08]of malaria prevention among women
[03:26.10]at highest risk for the disease.
[03:29.06]The journal PLoS Medicine
[03:31.94]published the analysis of maternal
[03:34.63]and infant malaria prevention measures.
[03:37.12]And that's the Health Report from VOA Learning English.
[03:41.20]You can comment on this story at tingvoa.com,
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[03:56.90]I'm Jim Tedder.