“People say they feel hot, uneasy and sometimes cannot sleep in a mosquito net but that is better than allowing yourself to be infected and sleeping in a hospital bed- this is according to the Acting Programmes Manager of the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), Dr Keziah Malm.
In 2015, about 214 million people worldwide were infected with the malaria virus while 430, 000 died of the disease. In Ghana, malaria contributes about 30% of all Out Patient Department (OPD) cases with 10 million cases recorded last year.
In view of this, the NMCP has rolled out a campaign to encourage the use of the Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN).
Dr. Malm told Citi News, “the national mass media campaign on the promotion of long lasting insecticide treated nets hope to increase the number of people that sleep in the ITN so that people get up and go look for the nets themselves and sleep in it instead of using it for fishing and other wrong purposes. In the next three months, we will collaborate with the media to ensure that people utilize the nets properly because it is very important in dealing with malaria.”
Currently, Ghana records about 5 deaths in every 10,000 cases.
Even though it is an improvement over the years, the statistics still remain high.
According to Dr. Malm, the NMCP is working to ensure that all pharmacies in the country are able to test and diagnose the virus so it can be treated immediately. This will also improve on OPD testing because not all cases recorded are malaria.
“Currently we’ve trained pharmacists and over the counter sellers. We are distributing Rapid Diagnostic Test kits (RDT) to them and some of them are also buying the RDTs for testing in their shops. We hope to get to a point where people can go to the pharmacy to get tested. We are putting in a lot of efforts to train more people and also improve on making data readily available when they test.”
Launching the campaign, the Health Minister, Alex Segbefia, said government will continue to support the campaign to prevent more cases especially in pregnant women.
“We will continue to strengthen our relationship with donor partners in terms of assisting us deal with malaria. But we must begin to do more on the education side. We are looking at how to reduce the numbers and also do a lot of prevention. We hope to get to a point where we can completely eradicate it just as some countries like Cuba have done. In 5 to 10 years, we hope to get there.”
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By: Farida Shaibu/citifmonline.com/Ghana