Bobirwa records highest Malaria cases this season

Onalenna Kelebeile | Tuesday April 25, 2017 16:38

This is compared to 44 cases in the same period during the 2014-2015 season and only 15 cases the same period during the 2015-2016 period.

However, the outbreak has resulted in only two deaths. DHMT head in Selebi-Phikwe, Dr Jackson Kakuamba noted during an interview that as compared to the previous seasons they have experienced new cases springing from places that never registered cases.

“We have had new villages in the district yielding malaria cases, something we did not expect. We had targeted 12 villages that had always been giving us cases in the past in our control initiatives. But this time we had cases from all over the district including lands and cattleposts,” he said.

As a control strategy the district will start the larviciding exercise in the district from May this year. This entails treating all pools of water to kill mosquito larvae so that they do not mature.

They have also embarked on indoor spraying of households in affected areas as well as distribution of mosquito nets.

The challenge they experienced in controlling the spread of malaria this season was lack of cooperation from owners of the houses some of who live in far away places.

“This has led to low coverage making the exercise expensive and useless,” he added.

He stressed that they will intensify their campaigns by starting the mobilisation early enough and that would even include contacting house owners.

He added that the high malaria cases are attributed to a lot of rainfalls experienced recently and said the high cases have not only been experienced here but the whole of the Southern African region.

He also observed that they started spraying a bit late this season and noted that usually spraying starts in October but this time it started in November and it gave mosquitoes time to multiply.

Kakuamba said however that the cases are declining with the coming of the winter season.