‘Let’s fight malaria locally’

KILIFI-MALARIA DAY; The Member for National Assembly for kaloleni Gunga Mwinga hands a treated net to one of the beneficiary Ms Rachael Gona during the World malaria day celebration held at Vishakani in Kaloleni Sat, 25. April 2015 where the Chief Officer department of health Kilifi County government Dr Timothy Malingi was the chief guest.PHOTOS BY JOSEPH MASHA/STANDARD

Kenya will need to do more to reduce malaria deaths. Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia says the country may not always get sufficient donor funds to fight the killer disease, something that may spell doom for the masses in Kenya predisposed to the disease caused by the plasmodium parasite.

Speaking at a media breakfast meeting in Nairobi on World Malaria Day, he said that the country has made tremendous progress in the fight against malaria but there is more that needs to be done.

“By the end of 2015, the ministry will have distributed 14 million nets in areas where malaria is known to be prevalent,” Macharia said. “So far, about 3.3 million of these have been issued and already they have shown an impact in lowering malaria cases.”

Health Ministry statistics show that there is a 15 per cent reduction in malaria outpatient attendance, down from 30 per cent five years ago.

At the meeting, it also emerged the burden malaria has on the country’s economy has reduced remarkably from 30 per cent a few years back to just 12 per cent in 2014. Reiterating the commitment of the Government in managing the disease, Macharia quoted Sh200 million as the amount set aside in the fight against the disease. Seventy two vector surveillance offices have been set up in 42 counties. Usage of insecticide-treated mosquito nets has gone up from 32 per cent to 76 per cent.

Despite having trained 1,500 more lab technicians at public health facilities and distributed 14.7 million diagnostic test kits, Macharia said malaria continues to be a great threat, especially to vulnerable groups: children and pregnant mothers.

“More needs to be done by us; we can’t rely on donor funds forever. So far, our approach is ‘prevention is better than cure’ but in order to declare full victory over malaria, we need medicine or a vaccine that will kill the parasite before it causes harm,” he said.

Drug resistance

According to Dr Waqo Ejersa, head of the Malaria Control Programme at the International Congress of Tropical Paediatrics, the medicine used in this country has proved 98 per cent effective in fighting malaria. As the world celebrated World Malaria Day on April 25, Dr Solomon Mpoke, the director of Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), alluded to positive vaccine news by researchers in the country. He attributed drug resistance to malaria to wrong diagnoses, saying that about 90 per cent of individuals treated for the disease neither suffer from it nor have the parasite in their blood.

The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS, 2014) statistics show that the mortality rate decreased to 52 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2014, down from 74 deaths per 1,000 live births from 2008 to 2009. This was attributed to increased surveillance against the disease.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there were 198 million cases of malaria in 2013 and 584,000 deaths globally. WHO adds that the burden is still greatest in sub-Saharan Africa where an estimated 90 per cent of all malaria deaths occur and where a child dies every minute from malaria.