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(NYASATIMES) Malawi to start indoor residual spraying to eliminate malaria

Malawi to start indoor residual spraying to eliminate malaria
Agencies 18 December, 2008 01:55:00

Malawi’s Secretary for Health, Chris Kang’ombe, on Wednesday announced that Malawi would soon start using indoor residual spraying practices throughout the country as an additional strategy for malaria prevention.

He told journalists in Lilongwe during a SADC Malaria Week commemoration activities that the country started doing the spraying last year (2007) as a one-year pilot project in Nkhotakota district, 120 km north of the capital Lilongwe, with financial and technical assistance from the US President George W. Bush’s malaria initiative programme.

"We have seen that indoor spraying was an effective intervention for malaria control and there was an impressive outcome because there has been a reduction of malaria cases in the district since the project started," he said.

He said government decided to scale up the project in the next season to Chikwawa, Nsanje, Karonga, Salima, Mangochi and Nkhata Bay districts which are prone to malaria.

Currently, he added, the main strategy which the country was using for the prevention of malaria was the use of insecticide treated mosquito nets (ITN).Since the ITN programme started in Malawi, government has so far distributed over five million ITNs to pregnant mothers and the under-five children nationwide.

This year alone, he said, government has distributed over 2.2 million ITNs of which 1.1 million was distributed through a mass community-based programme which was attended by the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Malaria Prevention, Singer Yvonne Chaka of South Africa.--APA

Labels: MALARIA

posted by MrK @ 1:37 PM