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Malaria prevention on course in Mkushi
Mkushi, March 4, ZANIS ———–The District Health Management Team (DHMT) in Mkushi has achieved 57 percent coverage of household Indoor Residual Spray (IRS) after 23 days of this activity.
Mkushi District Medical Officer (DMO) Rosemary Mwanza confirmed the statistics to ZANIS, saying that 5,279 households had been sprayed so far.
Dr Mwanza said that the DHMT had targeted 9,250 households for spraying in the 2013 IRS activity, adding that the plan was to complete this activity over the duration of 33 days.
She explained that the DHMT had run out of chemicals to use in order to achieve its target, saying that her office had communicated to the Provincial Health Management authorities for assistance on this matter.
She disclosed that 2,040 sachets of chemicals had been used in the exercise after 23 days, saying that the DHMT required about 1,000 more sachets in order to cater for the remaining households.
Dr Mwanza mentioned that the DHMT had deployed 35 Spray operators and five Supervisors for the 2013 IRS exercise, adding that she was confident that additional chemicals would be supplied soon so that Spray operators can meet the target.
She admitted that the district had been experiencing a widespread malaria incident rate over the past three months, saying that she was hopeful that the IRS exercise would help to address the issue.
She however appealed to residents to cooperate with IRS operators whenever the program resumed, saying that the 2013 IRS exercise was likely to be completed by March.
According to data obtained from the DHMT Statistics office, the district had a total malaria incident rate of 310 per 1,000 people as well as 48 malaria related deaths per 1,000, for the year 2011.
Latest statistics show that the DHMT had recorded 20,040 cases of malaria in the district between November 2012 and January 2013.
In relation to Diarrheal incident rate, a total of 3, 173 cases were recorded by the DHMT between November 2012 to January 2013.
Further data from DHMT shows that a total of confirmed 165 cases of dysentery were recorded during those same three months.
ZANIS / ENDS / CM /SM ———DRY
