Dar Es Salaam | Wednesday
MALARIA kills more than 100 000 people every year in Tanzania, but it was no longer getting due attention like HIV/Aids.
”The biggest threat to the fight against malaria today is HIV-Aids,” the programme manager of Tanzania’s National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), Alex Mwita, was recently quoted as saying by local newspapers.
Official records show that an estimated $54-million (62-million euros) are available for HIV-related projects in Tanzania in 2002/03, but the NMCP has just $731 000 to combat malaria during the same period.
Given that malaria kills more people in Tanzania than does Aids, and the socio-economic impact the disease has on a country which is keenly trying to tackle poverty, this is a worrying trend to many humanitarian workers.
Figures published by the NMCP earlier this month show that 93,7% of Tanzanians run the risk of catching malaria, resulting in over 18-million cases of the disease and 100 000 deaths every year.
”This makes malaria the major cause of morbidity, mortality and socio-economic problems in Tanzania at the moment notwithstanding the serious, and growing, problem of HIV/Aids,” the NMCP said. Meanwhile, health authorities have urged people to use insecticide treated nets (ITN) as a practical solution to malaria.
”Studies in many parts of Tanzania and Africa show the use of insecticide treated nets helps to check the spread of malaria,” the head of the preventive services department at the ministry of health, Ali Mzige, said on Tuesday.
Mzige told a news conference that his ministry, in partnership with various stakeholders in the country, was currently distributing ITN in several areas, especially remote rural districts. – Sapa-AFP