Efforts to fight malaria must be sustained

   TANZANIA joined the international community yesterday to mark the World Malaria Day under the theme “Invest in the future: Defeat Malaria.”

The country marked the day amid high hopes of eliminating the disease in the near future. Records indicate that since 2006, there has been a 50 per cent decrease in malaria to the current 9.5 per cent on the Mainland, while the disease is nearly eliminated in Zanzibar.

Indeed, in ten short years, there have been impressive reductions in malaria cases and deaths, which attest to government and other stakeholders’ commitment to tackle the disease.

It goes without saying that bed nets have been a big part of this success. The ownership of insecticide treated bed nets has increased from 23 per cent to over 90 per cent in a decade while over 72 per cent of children, a highly vulnerable group, now sleep under bed nets. Many of these children received their bed nets from school.

The revealed drop is measured from cases reported in various health centres and admission in wards as well as death of children under the age of five years.

All the labs in the health centres are equipped with facilities to detect such infections and the community is encouraged to undergo test after falling sick before taking any medicine.

Use of treated bed nets against mosquitoes continues to gain ground to prevent malaria. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) an estimated 163 million cases of malaria occurred in Africa, causing an approximately deaths of 528,000 people.

Between 2000 and 2013, the estimated number of malaria cases at risk population declined by 34 per cent. However, WHO further indicates that malaria death rates declined by 54 per cent in the African Region.

Efforts by our researchers against malaria stationed at different centres like the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) and others in collaboration with international partners deserve acknowledgment. Despite the success, malaria programmes in the country still face challenges.

They include insecticide resistance, while sustaining the availability of malaria commodities need to be addressed. As pointed out by experts, future success will require tremendous efforts and continued commitment.

Funding from donors will remain important but domestic funding will make these gains sustainable. Indeed, Tanzanians will ultimately defeat malaria.