Rotary Club gives Ngami mosquito nets

BONIFACE KEAKABETSE
Correspondent | Thursday August 15, 2013 00:00

The warning was made here during the donation of 120 mosquito nets by Gaborone Rotary Club (GRC) to the Ngamiland District Health Team to prevent the rising malaria prevalence in the district.  The nets will be distributed to people living in the Okavango Delta. There are 96,000 people living in Ngamiland. It was explained that given the high transmission brought by its watery terrain, proper usage of mosquito nets is a must in order to achieve the 'no transmission' status. 

Malaria is transmitted though bites from the infected anopheles mosquitoes.Speaking during the handover ceremony on Saturday, head of health services in Ngamiland, Dr Christopher Chembe noted that the district experienced an upsurge in the number of reported Malaria cases in 2013.  The cases increased from 15 reported in 2012 to 68 during this year's malaria season. There has been one death recorded, the first casualty recorded since 2012.Chembe revealed that the highest number of deaths recorded was in 2001 when 16 people died but since then there had been an improvement in the mortality rate. The district of Ngamiland, a tourist attraction is a Malaria red zone.

Chembe said residents tended to ignore immunisation, meaning that everyone was at risk of developing malaria particularly pregnant women, children under five years and elderly people over 65 years of age.  Travellers to the district are always advised to take proper medication before visiting.Chembe outlined his district's Malaria Management Plan, which is entrenched in Botswana's Malaria elimination strategy.  The strategy informs that Botswana targets to have eliminated Malaria by 2015.  He said a fully trained Malaria team has been deployed for seasonal outbreaks.

There are also measures such as strengthening surveillance, community education, disease management systems, prevention and treatment campaigns. Shorobe area councillor, Sam Chaba said the Malaria prevalence in Shorobe and other parts of the district was compounded by the fact that some places were inaccessible by road and could only be reached by boat or air.He said communities in Ditshiping and Gabaamotshaa hardly access health services due to inaccessible terrain.He also suggested that health authorities must set up malaria clubs in villages to help spread prevention messages.Chaba said the community of Shorobe recommended that they administer the DDT insecticide themselves, and not Ministry of Health personnel who are largely strangers to the residents.

'Some say they are afraid to allow strangers into their houses to spray DDT. So we suggest that health authorities train people in every village on how to spray,' he said. Earlier on Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Setshano Mokgweetsinyana noted that generally deaths from malaria had declined in Botswana.He said in 2002 there were 30 deaths per 1,000 people which he said have declined to 0.15 per 1,000 people.He attributed the improvement to the role of the private sector such as the Rotary Club's donation of the nets. Mokgweetsinyana, however, expressed concern that some students used the mosquito nets to fish and for shading gardens.

This kind of misuse is said to be a problem all over sub-Saharan Africa in fishing communities such as by fishermen of Lake Malawi and Lake Ngami.Chairperson of the Gaborone Rotary Club, Sashi Jaddoo said his club partnered with BFIM and Stanbic Bank to buy the mosquito nets.He hoped that the project would make a difference to the Ngamiland district.Jaddoo said since the club was established in 1972, it has donated and taken part in many projects to help make a difference in Botswana.He pledged that the club would continue helping Batswana throughout the country.