Govt restless over malaria scare

The Malawi Government says it is intensifying efforts to fight malaria in the country.

Officials from the ministry of health are among things ensuring the availability of anti-malaria drug LA in CHAM and public health facilities

In a statement, the ministry said there are about 500,000 malaria patients seen every month in both public and CHAM health facilities in the country.

This has prompted significant investment in control of malaria by both the Malawi government and development partners such as in procurement of anti-malaria drugs, long lasting insecticides, mosquito nets and malaria rapid diagnostic tests.

“We would like to assure the general public that there are adequate stocks of LA at central level and distribution for the month of April and May 2016 is ongoing and will be completed soon,” reads part of the statement.

The ministry says it introduced new treatment guidelines for malaria in order to streamline proper case management.

Diagnostic tools such as malaria rapid diagnostic tests were also introduced to ensure that all suspected cases of malaria are confirmed through testing before treatment is initiated.

The Ministry has been distributing malaria drugs to hospitals on regular basis and the last distribution was done in March 2016.

On average the ministry of health says it distributes about 800, 000 doses of anti-malaria drugs per month.

With the introduction of the new treatment guidelines and training of all health workers at health facility level on the ground, it is expected that each and every malaria case would be tested and confirmed before treatment is administered.

The ministry says it is closely working with District Health Management teams (DHMTs) and central hospitals to strengthen the malaria commodity and morbidity systems to ensure that only confirmed cases receive malaria treatment.

Currently, the ministry is distributing over 9 million mosquito nets to communities in 19 districts across Malawi.