Malaria cases down 50 percent

21 Jun, 2015 - 01:06 0 Views

The Sunday News

Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporter
THE country has recorded a significant decline in malaria cases and deaths with 231 490 cases having been recorded so far this year compared to 425 444 cases recorded during the same period last year. Data from the Ministry of Health and Child Care shows that 317 people died of malaria countrywide down from 515 who succumbed to the disease in the first six months of last year.

At least 11 people died of malaria out of 8 044 cases recorded during week 22 of this year, again a significant drop from 20 deaths out of 14 087 cases recorded in the same week of last year.

Of the total number of cases and deaths recorded during week 22 of this year, 16 percent and one death were children under the age of five years.
The provinces which reported the highest number of cases were Mashonaland Central (3 053) and Mashonaland East (2 260).
Masvingo recorded the highest number of deaths with four people in the province having succumbed to the disease while Mashonaland Central recorded three deaths, followed by Mashonaland West Province which had two deaths. Harare Province also recorded two deaths.

Last year saw a sharp increase in malaria cases with the cases that were recorded in the first six months of the year having surpassed by about seven percent the total cases recorded in 2013.

Programme manager of the malaria control unit in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Joseph Mberikunashe attributed the significant decrease in malaria cases and deaths to a number of factors, among them the low rainfall received in most parts of the country during the past rain season.

“The decrease cannot be attributed to one factor. There are a lot of reasons which include the low rainfall that we recorded generally across the country. The major factor, however, is that we also changed the insecticide that we used in Manicaland Province. We previously used pyrethroid but this time we switched to organophosphate because we felt that the mosquitoes were now becoming resistant to the initial insecticide,” he said.

Dr Mberikunashe said his department was expecting a sharp decline of malaria during the winter period with the figures likely to go up when the rain season starts.
He, however, expressed optimism that this year would record few cases of malaria compared to last year.

“Overall by the time we get to December we would have recorded fewer cases than what we recorded last year. We don’t expect a lot of cases this year. Again that will be mainly due to the factors that I highlighted earlier,” he said.

Between 2012 and 2013 the country experienced an upsurge of Malaria incidence and the Ministry of Health and Child Care was on alert for a possible outbreak of the disease.
The health ministry is targeting to reduce malaria deaths from 22 per thousand people per year, to one per thousand by 2017.

In the early 2000s the country used to record up to two million cases of malaria every year and about 5 000 deaths, but the cases have since fallen to below half a million per year with an average of 350 deaths being recorded in recent years.

Dr Mberikunashe said his department had put in place a raft of measures and strategies to reduce malaria incidence in the country.
Some of the critical measures that the National Malaria Control Unit has adopted include surveillance of malaria-causing mosquitoes and control activities in malaria prone areas.
Zimbabwe has also engaged other countries from the Sadc region in Trans-frontier collaborative efforts to contain the disease.

Some of the regional collaborations that the country has entered into include the TransZambezi Co-operation with Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana, and the Mozisa programme with Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Last year 326 people died of malaria while 386 505 cases were reported countrywide throughout the year.
Malaria is caused by a type of mosquito known as Anopheles. At the turn of the millennium Zimbabwe recorded an estimated two million cases of malaria per year ranking as one of the countries with the highest incidence of the disease.

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