Malaria statistics going down

Secretary General to African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) and Botswana’s former health minister, Joy Phumaphi has noted the great strides the country has made in addressing the scourge of Malaria but says prevention should continue to be priority if the country is to eradicate the infectious disease by 2030.

Botswana, alongside 49 other African countries, has recently adopted an ambitious plan to eliminate malaria in the continent in the coming decade. By signing the "Catalytic Framework to end Aids, TB and Eliminate Malaria in Africa by 2030," the country will seek to eliminate malaria incidence and mortality, and prevent its transmission and reestablishment in all countries by 2030.

The roadmap was endorsed during the 27th African Union (AU) Summit in Kigali under the auspices of the ALMA.Botswana can eliminate malaria but that is not sustainable due to importation from across the borders and issues of climate change.

In addition to traditional control strategies, Phumaphi said there was need to add drug-based interventions such as presumptive treatment or mass drug administration to Africa’s arsenal of weapons.“I know that pilot interventions are underway in some countries and we need to purposefully think about rapidly bringing these new tools into policy and guidance once they have been approved by the World Health Organization,” she said“Efforts are underway to strengthen the global partnership for malaria.

This presents yet another unparalleled opportunity to create a mechanism that effectively harnesses the massive amount of support that exists for this goal,” further stated Phumaphi.

Over the past 14 years, Botswana has reduced the incidence of Malaria from 42 cases per 1 000 of the population in the year 2000 to 0.23 per 1000 in 2013. The country registered 12 malaria-related deaths in 2008, seven in 2009, eight in 2010 and 2011, three in 2012, four in 2015 and already has two this year.

In respect to the rest of Africa in the past 16 years, malaria mortality rates have fallen by 66 per cent among all age groups and by 71 per cent among children under five years old. Annual malaria deaths in Africa have decreased from an estimated 764,000 in 2000 to 395,000 in 2015.However, despite the progress, the disease is one of the top causes of morbidity in pregnant women and mortality in children.