Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 26, 2017 News
…in quest to reduce incidence of malaria
Between 2014 and 2016 there has been a steady decrease in the incidence of malaria in Guyana.
According to information out of the Ministry of Public Health last year, there were 10,165 confirmed cases of malaria.
But the Ministry of Public Health is working on a strategic tactic that will further help to reduce the numbers.
To help realise this goal, government has allocated $85 million in the 2017 fiscal estimates for the procurement of Long Lasting Insecticide Nets [LLIN] to facilitate the roll out of a mass distribution of these nets.
According to Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence, the mass distribution of nets will be done every three years in Guyana commencing this year. Continuous net distributions will be done at health facilities across this nation.
These distributions, according to the Minister, will be supported with an Information Education and Communications [IEC] campaign in response to the challenge of having limited access to and use of this important malaria prevention tool in the country.
This approach is in keeping with an existing National Strategic Plan 2015-2020 for the malaria programme in Guyana. The Strategic Plan was drafted with the intention of optimising and building upon the lessons learned from previous periods and recent years of programme implementation.
The Strategic Plan, therefore, is one that seeks to lay out the foundation for eliminating the local transmission of the disease in low endemic regions of Guyana. As such, it has outlined as a goal under the Strategic Priority Four, the need to optimise the distribution and use of long lasting insecticide nets in malaria affected communities. The main target areas are Regions One, Seven, Eight and Nine.
Minister Lawrence said that during the course of last year some 10,000 nets were distributed through health facilities across the 10 administrative regions and she is optimistic that this number will be surpassed this year.
Moreover, Minister Lawrence in a message to mark World Malaria Day 2017 said, “We cannot afford to become complacent as persons are still dying of this scourge in our beloved country.” World Malaria Day is observed annually on March 25. This year the theme embraced is ‘A push for prevention’.
The Ministry of Public Health has over the years been gaining substantial support from its international partners and donor agencies to help combat scourges such as malaria. Its main support have been coming from the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation [PAHO/WHO] and the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, which according to Minister Lawrence, has been offering considerable technical support to the malaria programme.
But according to the Minister, “The Government of Guyana along with its international partners and donor agencies cannot do it alone. We count on the involvement of each citizen of our beloved country to join us in eliminating mosquito-breeding sites, especially around mining and logging camps.”
In 2015, about 8,000 cases of malaria were recorded by the Ministry of Public Health’s Vector Control Services Unit.
This suggests that there has either been an increase in cases or the Ministry has been able to improve its surveillance capacity in order to detect more cases. Malaria is transmitted by the female anopheles mosquitoes. Its symptoms include shaking chills that can range from moderate to severe, high fever, profuse sweating, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and anaemia.
In its efforts to heighten detection of malaria during the course of the past year, the Ministry had rolled out a pilot project which saw the training of miners in Region Eight to use malaria rapid testing kits and to administer treatment for uncomplicated cases of malaria.
Ninety-six miners from mining areas such as Black Water, Jumbie Creek, Micobie, and Konawaruk were trained.
Operations Training Officer of the Vector Control Services Unit of the Public Health Ministry, Mr. Keith Moore, had during the past year revealed that the Ministry had embraced the initiative to train miners with a view of having malaria diagnosed quickly.
This move, he said, translated to miners being taught how to do rapid malaria tests and also to take blood smears. “We train them to treat according to the diagnosis. We will give them the drugs to treat, we will teach them how to treat and we will give them everything they need to do that work,” Moore had related.
He, however, asserted that “we are looking for one type of treatment so this service is not going to be extended to children and pregnant women.”
The initiative, according to Moore, was deliberately designed to help ensure that miners in particular are diagnosed early and treated early. This is important, Moore noted, since it has been proven that once patients are subjected to early treatment they have a better chance of recuperating properly.
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