Deputy minister of Health Halima Daudi has called for efforts among stakeholders in order to achieve sustainable progress towards elimination of Malaria in the country.
Daudi made the remarks on Tuesday in Lilongwe during the World Malaria Day commemoration.
She said to achieve that, individuals and communities must be involved and take responsibility because Malaria prevention methods will only be effective through continuous community-led action and ownership of interventions.
“This is in line with this year’s World Malaria Day theme which says “Time to Deliver Zero Malaria: Invest, Innovate, Implement”. If every Malawian said this and took action against malaria, we would quickly eliminate malaria in Malawi.
“The problem we have is that most people are simply spectators in the fight against Malaria, and the few who do something, do not use preventive measures consistently. Today I appeal to all Malawians to say “Ndiyamba ndine kuthana ndi malungo,” but we need to go beyond this by taking real action against Malaria. It is only when every one of us takes responsibility to fight malaria, that we can eliminate malaria in Malawi.
“We have to Invest in efforts to defeat malaria. Funding should be prioritized for the most marginalized and hard-to-reach populations who are less able to access services and hardest hit when they become ill. We need also to step up Innovation and add our voices to those calling for innovations that bring new vector control approaches, diagnostics and medicines to accelerate progress against malaria,” she said
She further said that there is an urgent need to make more effective use of available tools and strategies to prevent, diagnose and treat malaria, particularly among the unreached populations.
“This therefore also provides us an opportunity to launch the National Malaria Communication Strategy and a Malaria message guide. We would like to appreciate the work the districts are doing in the fight against malaria. Therefore, on this World Malaria Day we would like to recognize districts that have performed well in a number of malaria indicators,” said Daudi
WHO Country Representative Dr. Kimambo Neema Rusibamayila said While progress has been made and people congratulate themselves for the achievements over last year, they are greatly concerned that malaria deaths remain unacceptably high, and cases have remained stubborn to reduce.
“Our Region, therefore, continues to be hardest hit by this deadly disease partly because too many people do not have access to preventive and curative interventions. Nearly 30 percent of the population in most African countries cannot access essential health services, and most people face unacceptably high expenditures on health care. Significant inequities affect the most vulnerable, young children and women, whereas about 80 percent of malaria cases and deaths occur in children under five.
“To reverse these trends and accelerate progress, we must rethink and revitalize our strategies by investing, innovating and implementing smartly. On investments, there is need to increase funding for malaria interventions through primary health care approaches so that malaria services are accessed by the most vulnerable populations wherever they are.
“On innovation, there is a great need to increase the number and efficacy of control tools and strategies so that interventions can have a greater impact. In this light, WHO recently prequalified new dual active ingredient insecticide-treated nets and several insecticides for indoor residual spraying. The new RTS,S vaccine deployment has been extended beyond the three initial countries and several other innovative products are in the pipeline. New tools and strategies are needed to address the threats of drug resistance, insecticide resistance, and new invasive vectors compromising gains in vector control.
“Finally, on implementation. We should all prioritise this segment as part of the 2023 campaign, and the critical importance of reaching marginalized populations with the available tools and strategies to reduce transmission for present and future gains. Malaria programmes should be decentralized to the district and community levels where health systems are closest to the affected populations. We must empower frontline health workers and communities to participate fully in identifying key barriers in accessing services, ensure effective implementation of malaria control strategies and hold their leaders accountable for health outcomes,” she said
The day was commemoratd under the theme ; “TIME TO DELIVER ZERO MALARIA: WITH THE THREE (I)S: INVEST, INNOVATE, IMPLEMENT.”
Malaria remains a significant public health and development challenge not just in Malawi but the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2021, an estimated 247 million new malaria cases and 619,000 deaths were reported globally, however, 95% of these occurred in the WHO/AFRO Region (234 million and 593,000 deaths), where 75% of our population remains at risk of the disease.
