📌DANIEL MSANGYA
AN
estimated 219 million cases of Malaria occur worldwide each year and of these
cases, 660,000 people will die. Sub-Sahara Africa is the region with the
heaviest malaria burden where pregnant women and children under age five are
the most vulnerable. It is in this region where data indicated that a
child dies of Malaria every minute entailing that the illness and burden is felt
most severely than everywhere in the world.
Our Correspondent Fellow
for RBM Partnership to End Malaria Daniel Benno Msangya elucidates the
challenges, opportunities, efforts and recommends Malaria to take an agenda in
the political campaign for the forthcoming elections in Tanzania in a bid to
zero Malaria.
Malaria
in Tanzania is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in
children under 5 years and pregnant women. The disease ranks number one in both
outpatient and inpatient statistics.
A
resident of Makole Street in Dodoma City James Madule expresses his family’s
experience with Malaria, “There are many ways in
which malaria has affected my life. I lost my closer and lovely relatives
including both my parents – mother and father, my two daughters and a son due
to Malaria. I have lost many friends and my neighbours, hence it is a dangerous
disease that should be addressed as a special agenda in the manifesto of each
political party.”
Madule says it is very sad that he had not
heard any single candidate speaking how Malaria will be reduced. Very sad
indeed to mention a list of the people died from this type of epidemic, while
politicians are silent as they campaign to be voted in, “Everyday people get
affected,” he noted adding that the children under five-year-old and pregnant
women are the most affected.
Most
obviously, malaria has a huge burden on health services, as sick people require
diagnosis, treatment and sometimes hospital care which have cost-effective.
Being a
pregnant woman, Maria Maembe agrees that Malaria has affected many families.
She makes clear that the days of illness prevent people from going to work or
children from going to school, and this can have a tremendous knock-on effect
on a society’s economy. “In fact, malaria is one out of many alarming diseases
that are the key factor “trapping” our families into extreme poverty,” She has
been offered with a mosquito net and diagnosed every time she attends the
clinic.
Sub-Sahara
Africa reports 90 % of the total Malaria related deaths worldwide and
foreshadows what is happening globally. Mosquito resistance to insecticides and
patient resistance to current pharmaceutical treatment are emerging as serious
potential threats to effective and affordable Malaria control.
Despite
this heavy burden, there are concerted efforts geared towards Malaria
elimination, which have prompted committed researchers, journalists, health
experts and decision makers to start informal forums to discuss how to
eradicate Malaria not only from the African region, but worldwide.
Zanzibar represents the United Republic of Tanzania with a special case and an estimate considered low (1%). This is a starting point to eradicate the disease.
However, Zanzibar does fear the potential of Malaria to bounce back quickly as
the parasites develop resistance to available drugs and current treatments.
Health experts report mosquitoes building resistance to insecticides, this
representing a significant challenge because Malaria-carrying mosquitoes lead to
continued spread of the disease.
For
Tanzania Mainland, we have an audacity to express achievements to reduce
Malaria by 50 % while the infection of malaria vectors continues to decrease
from 15 percent in 2015 to 7% in the year 2018.
The
Malaria Control Coordinator from the President’s Office, Ministry of Local
Government and Regional Administration (LGRA) Ms Stella Kajange commended the
Institution of Johns Hopkins Centre for Communication for extending supporting
through Vector Works in collaboration with USAID and the American’s
Presidential Fund to Control Malaria (PMI) as she told the health stakeholders
in Dodoma.
According to Kajange the decrease in malaria infection was due to concerted efforts from stakeholders including government contribution and partners being a sign of success.
We expect more success and while more efforts will be geared towards the fighting against malaria which is the killer number one diseases in Tanzania
explains Kajange adding that despite the tremendous decrease it is
still a threat for the communities, and that is a reason the government
continues to invest in implementing various interventions to ensure the disease
is totally eliminated in the
country.
The policy
adopted in 2007 elaborate the vision of the people in ensuring they become,
healthy in order to continue developing production activities for their
benefit. “The government in collaboration with stakeholders will enhance the
fighting against malaria,” she said thanking USAID and PMI and others for their
kindness in implementing various projects in different regions.
The Vector Works Director Waziri Nyoni said the implementation of the project had completed last August, “it took a period of five years and our expectation was that it has impacted on the development by ensuring the people continue to use the mosquito bed nets effectively.
The project was focused in three
interventions, policy, distributions of bed nets, survey and result evaluation.
According to the Manager for Malaria Control (NMCP) Winfred Mwafongo malaria
disease affects most of the group of pregnant women and children under five
year- year and the government has a plan in place to combat malaria through
various interventions designed and related to malaria control. Among the
interventions is to ensure the use of Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets and
other preventive measures.
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