The Limpopo Malaria Institute says a high number of malaria cases have already been reported in the province and work is underway to fumigate close to 800 000 households across Limpopo.
The Malaria Institute’s Deputy Director Programmes Manager, Erick Mabunda, said fumigation throughout Limpopo’s five districts is ongoing, and they have beefed up their personnel to curb the epidemic.
A number of campaigns
“We are more than ready. This year we have managed to employ more temporary workers and we are busy now with operations in all our five districts in Limpopo,” said Mabunda.
“This year we are going to spray 798 000 structures, we increased it from 656 000 that we covered last year because of the number of cases that we saw coming up after we sprayed. Some of them were from structures not on our spraying programme last season.”
Mabunda emphasised that there had been a number of campaigns in the province to inform residents about the dangers of malaria and how to overcome some challenges they encounter during spraying.
“We have done door-to-door campaigns just to inform people about the importance of having their houses sprayed. But for now people are responding positively,” he said.
Measures in place
In an effort to reduce infections and mortality, Mabunda said they had started spraying early this season and would employ all their strategies, including indoor residual spraying and surveillance of all cases.
“This year we are confident that we will reduce the infections and death numbers because we have treatment and insecticides in place,” Mabunda said.
Malaria can be prevented by burning mosquito coils or by hanging mosquito nets over the bed, by staying indoors at night, wearing long sleeves and pants to keep skin protected and also by spraying aerosol insecticide in the house. – Health-e News
Image credit: iStock