Hiking rate of malaria in Malaita province

BY SAMIE WAIKORI

AUKI 

MALAITA Provincial Vector Borne Disease Control Office in Auki has reported an annual increase of malaria in the province over the past years.

Programme Manager of Vector Borne Control programme for Malaita province, Mr John Susubi said in 2020, an increase of eight percent parasite incidental rate of malaria was recorded for the province compared to 2019.

He said the summary of records collected in the past years showed malaria keeps increasing year after year on a head-on rate.

Susubi said there were causes identified for the increase, but the primary cause was due to weaknesses in malaria control activities in the province.

He said there was also finding that an upsurge of malaria cases is always recorded from the month of November to April then May to October every year.

Susubi said whether this can be related to weather pattern of the country is interesting to know and is subjected to scientific study.

However, he said in order to reduce the rate of malaria in the province, it’s everybody’s business to work together in malaria control activities in the province.

Susubi said under vector borne control, three major components involved in the fight against malaria are, human being, environment and chemical.

He explained that under the component “human being” it comes with medication or treatment for people when tested positive and sick of malaria.

And this is the common malaria control people often resolve to, but this should be the last control people should seek in the campaign against malaria.

Susubi furthered that the second component is “environment”; this involves proper clean-ups in and around homes to avoid malaria and its reproduction in the environment.

He said the third component is chemical; that involves anti-malaria chemicals like Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) and others that applied in homes some years ago.

Saying that under the component is bed-net commonly known as mosquito net that is distributed to communities and can be accessible in malaria centres in the country.    

Susubi said another factor that keeps malaria active is because it has treatment in place, so people tend to become complacent since they think that treatment is available so everything will be ok.

He said fight against malaria should be a joint effort by everyone that requires personnel commitments to reduce the rate of malaria especially in Malaita province.

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