Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Dr. Pierre Flambeau Ngayap. I'm a senator from Cameroon. I'm very happy to be here today. Canada and Cameroon have the same history concerning language. We are a bilingual country. We speak both official languages, French and English.

Permit me to develop my topic in French, because it's the main language I use as a pharmacist, as an economist, as a teacher at university, and also in the Parliament of Cameroon.

Thank you very much.

Today is important because of the privilege that you are granting me, as a parliamentary colleague, to share with you the gravity of malaria. To do so, I will not use epidemiological terms, since it is well-known that this disease is endemic and that it is rampant in some regions, principally in Black Africa, south of the Sahara. It is most appropriate to tell you about the direct impact of malaria on the economic capacity of the African continent.

I am going to give you two or three examples to demonstrate the extent to which malaria affects our continent’s ability to develop. The continent develops often with the support of countries like your own. The cooperation between Cameroon and Canada is an old and truly excellent one. It is based on the mutual understanding that unites us.

Malaria is a disease that mainly affects two major sectors of the population in Africa: the young, including children from birth to five years of age, and adults, especially pregnant women. Those two population groups, the most vulnerable and the most severely affected by the disease, are particularly important. The young are the future of the continent while women are the mothers of humankind.

In reproductive terms, pregnant women are particularly vulnerable. When a pregnant woman is afflicted by malaria, her capacity to carry the fetus to term is reduced. The baby the mother carries is often born prematurely. Even if it is not premature, the baby’s physiological growth or developmental capacity are affected. Some forms of malaria even attack the nervous system. This is what is called neurological or cerebral malaria. If a pregnant woman does not receive proper care during her pregnancy, there can be a dual consequence: on her own health and on the health of the baby she is carrying.

Children too are particularly vulnerable in early childhood, by virtue of the very fact that they are children. But it becomes most important when they begin to go to school. The main symptoms of malaria are fever, headaches, fatigue and vomiting, all of which require students to stay at home. They cannot go to school with symptoms such as those, hence the high absenteeism rate of children with this disease.

As teachers too may be affected, you can imagine the cumulative absentee rate that it represents. At the end of the day, it means lack of productivity for both children and teachers. Children are not able to reach the level of instruction they might have reached under normal circumstances and teachers cannot complete the curricula for the children.

The third example involves adults working in a company, or, in rural areas, in a plantation. Their malaria symptoms are the same as the children's. People are incapable of moving and must stay in bed. In our countries, generally speaking, malaria is the cause of 30% to 40%, if not more, of hospitalizations and up to 50% of medical consultations, outpatient visits, we might say.

All these factors make the workers less productive, tired, or not there at all. They cannot perform to the level they would if they were in good health. All those factors have a very major impact on overall productivity, the performance of the economy and the country's GDP level. It has been seen that overall productivity drops considerably, sometimes as much as 30% or 40%, because of absenteeism or because people are unable to assume their normal social or economic responsibilities

For those reasons, I was pleased to team up with Roll Back Malaria in this mission. It is important for you to hear from one of your colleagues from the countries of the south who is telling you how important it is for you to continue making the effort you have always made to fight this disease. It must be understood that the fight against poverty includes one essential element, malaria. Malaria is both the cause and the effect of poverty. The efforts you make globally to combat poverty should greatly help to combat malaria. It is one specific way to fight poverty.

Thank you.

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