Ghana’s progress in the fight against malaria despite several interventions is yielding very little results as children and pregnant women continue to die from the disease.
The Programme Manager of the Malaria Control Programme, Dr. Constance Bart-Plange said the country is failing in combating the disease because it has been left in the hands of a few concerned people.
“The attitude to malaria by both health workers and the general public has been that of apathy. Most of us regard malaria as an “ordinary disease even though it is killing our children within 48 hours.”
She cautioned that malaria continuous to be a killer disease that needs to be addressed.
“It is time for us to shed our apathetic attitude to the disease and marshal all resources to eliminate it.”
Dr. Bart-Plange was addressing a durbar in Accra to mark the Africa Malaria Day, April 25, 2007, under the theme, “Leadership and Partnership for Results.”
Again, she attributed the minimal impact of malaria control and prevention interventions to the fact that health workers and chemical sellers first diagnose every sickness with or without fever as malaria until proven otherwise.
According to her malaria admissions dropped from 132,556 in 2004 to 122,928 in 2006, while the proportion of deaths attributed to malaria also dropped from 32% in 2003 to 19% in 2006.
Dr. Bart-Plange said that last year malaria constituted 38.6% of outpatient cases against 44% in 2000.
“Whereas only 3.3% of all pregnant women were sleeping in insecticide treated nets in 2003, it rose sharply to 46.5% in 2006.” She stated further that households owning an Insecticide Treated Net (ITN) increased from 17.6% in 2004 to 51.1% in 2006. Giving highlights of some interventions to reduce malaria, Dr. Bart-Plange said over 3.5 million treated nets have been distributed over the six-year period at highly subsidized prices of ¢20,000 to reach pregnant women and children especially.
She said all 138 district health teams and 10 regional health teams received additional funds from Global Fund to intensify campaign against malaria.
“We have supported research into malaria-related issues as a means of informing us on the best and most effective intervention to put in place for Ghana”, she added. She emphasized the need for government and health partners to support the sector to do extensive larviciding (killing of mosquito babies) to kill the larvae.
She also appealed to the media to continue to devote space to interventions to fight malaria and urged all to eliminate the mosquito before it eliminates the citizenry.
This year marks the seventh commemoration of Africa Malaria Day, a day chosen in 2000 by African governments to reaffirm their commitment, embodied in the Abuja Declaration to halve the burden of malaria in Africa by 2010.
The day reminds the global community of the enormous burden of malaria on the most impoverished and vulnerable populations in the world.
Mr. Samuel Owusu Agyei, Deputy Minister for Health stated that environmental management and personal protection remain the best weapons in the fight against malaria.
“I call on all community and opinion leaders to play the leadership role expected in keeping the environment clean.”
He appealed to traditional and religious leaders to periodically embark on clean ups to rid their surroundings of mosquito breeding sitesAn address read on behalf of the World Health Organisation, (WHO) Representative to Ghana, Dr. J. Saweka regretted that malaria continues to be a leading cause of death for children under the age of five in Africa, with one dying every 30 seconds.
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