Govt committed to reduce malaria rate by half by 2010

Government says it is committed to achieving the Role Back Malaria goals of reducing the pandemic by fifty percent by 2010 in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Health Minister Kapemba Simbao said in view of the Sociol-economic impact of malaria, the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) focuses on the eradication of malaria as one of the key health priorities.

Mr Simbao said the country has already attained the Role Back Malaria Goal as stipulated in the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.

He was speaking when he officiated at this year’s commemoration of World Malaria Day held at Mbinga Rural Health Centre in the outskirts of Katete Boma, in Katete today.[quote]

Mr Simbao said according to the WHO news release of April this malaria deaths reported in Health facilities have declined by 66 percent.

” Our ultimate goal is to attain a malaria – free Zambia and what we have done so far is a remarkable achievement, ” he said.

Mr Simbao noted that Zambia was one of the countries that attended the 2000 Abuja summit in Nigeria where it was a signatory to the declaration to ensure that 60 percent of people had access to cost-effective and affordable anti-malaria drugs.

He however expressed concern that most of the people who owned Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets (ITNs) only slept under them the first day they acquired them adding that according to 2008 malaria indicator survey about 41.1 percent of children aged between zero and 59 months slept under a net the night before the survey, while 43.2 percent of pregnant women did the same.

” We must not just implement interventions but regularly assess our performance to determine if we are achieving the desired impact and using resources in a cost-effective manner,” Mr Simba said.

He said government was committed to ensuring that malaria control measures were intensified in the country.

The health minister said it was the reason why his ministry was providing ITNs and tools to diagnose malaria besides prevention measures for pregnant women were scaled up.

He said he was happy that the availability for the effective drugs for the treatment of malaria had greatly improved adding that people should not lose their lives as a result of malaria because the drug were easily accessible and free of charge in all health institutions.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States of America (USA) Embassy, Michael Koplovsky challenged all communities to have a role to play in the fight against malaria.

Mr Koplovsky said malaria caused Africa to more that K70 trillion every year in terms of treatment and there was need to have a call to action.

” Zambia and USA are looking into this to prevent and treat malaria where the In house Residual Spraying (IRS) to prevent malaria was done to 670,000 house in Zambia to protect more than four million people from the disease,” he stated..

Mr Koplovsky added that despite using ITNs and spraying people needed to be diagnosed on malaria every time they had a fever if the country was to count malaria out as per this year’s theme states.

And World Health Organisation Country Representative Dr Olusegun Babaniyi commnded government for drawing near to the MDGs number five and six that aimed at reducing malaria by 2015.

Dr Babaniyi added that Malaria prevention and reduction has been a success in the country because of government’s consistence in programs stipulated in the National Strategic Plan.

ZANIS/DM/SM/ENDS/MM.