Malaria claims 10 lives
Mpho Mokwape | Friday November 16, 2018 13:30
The ministry, though indicating that there has been a positive decline on the disease said that the 10 lives lost to malaria was still a high number hence the need to educate and strategise on elimination.
Speaking during a media-training workshop on Wednesday, Dr Refilwe Senyatso from the National Malaria Programme (NMP) said there was still a lot to do in sensitising the public about the disease, treatment and efforts to eliminate it.
She explained that loss of one person to malaria was one too many hence the need for a total elimination. “There is a decline in cases, but at the same time cases of malaria are still being recorded and lives are being lost, sometimes due to late diagnosis,” she said.
Dr Senyatso said the country significantly reduced malaria burden since 2000 though it remains a major public health concern as there were about 500 or so cases reported in 2018 alone. She explained that this called for a robust action plan such as the one that was done during the scourge of HIV/AIDS to achieve desired results in the elimination of the disease.
“The goal of malaria elimination relies heavily on a system that can rapidly and efficiently test, treat and respond to each reported case. But at the same time it relies heavily on the sensitisation of the public to respond well on time for better results and stick to health advices,” she said. Chebukani Nkobodo, also from the NMP talked on partnership for malaria saying community partnership in malaria elimination was very important as it can open and sustain a continuous dialogue between health officials and the community.
She explained that in the fight against any kind of the disease, community engagement and mobilisation were crucial, more especially where there is concentration of the disease.
“Malaria treatment and elimination calls for a proper management plan which involves case report management, advocacy, community mobilisation and strengthening of programme management,” she said.
Another officer from the ministry, Kabo Garegae said there were hindrances when dealing with malaria, some being that malaria was perceived as a low priority disease in some communities due to low transmission and inadequate health learning material.
He noted that even sustainability of community-based interventions was lacking, hence he called for intensified awareness creation on elimination and its targets and advocacy for increased community participation.
Garegae indicated that plans were afoot to conduct a study in February 2019 to better strategise and conduct community conversations to understand community behaviours around uptake.
According to the ministry’s extended malaria strategic plan for 2014/2018 report, there has been downward trend of malaria cases both confirmed and clinical from 2006 to 2012.
“The sharp increase from 2010 in unconfirmed cases was due to change in case definition of malaria from treating clinical cases to only those confirmed by laboratory test,” reads the report. It also indicated that the decline was due to the fact that the malaria programme uses a number of interventions to achieve the goal of malaria elimination.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO) malaria remains a major public health concern, with approximately 214 million malaria cases and 438, 000 deaths reported in 2014. The organisation says Africa has the greatest malaria burden globally, accounting for more than 90% of deaths worldwide.
However, WHO indicated that since 2000, with combined efforts, Botswana has made substantial strides in malaria reductions with numbers of cases having nosedived by approximately 98%, from 70, 000 cases reported in 2000 to only 1,480 in 2014, placing the country on the verge of malaria elimination.