KIGALI - The Director of the Malaria unit in TRAC Plus, Dr. Corine Karema, announced that Rwanda has reduced its malaria prevalence by 40 percent within the last one year.

Karema made the remarks while reacting to the 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) Malaria Report 2010 which indicated that malaria cases were on the increase in Rwanda.

"The assessment contained in the WHO report is based on 2009 data. A lot has been much that has been done since then,” Dr. Karema said.

She, however, added that the reason as to why there were alarming figure in 2009 was because there was a delay in the distribution of mosquito nets.

"We distributed over 2.9 million bed nets in the last quarter of 2009 and the first months of 2010 and as a reason of that there has been a fall of over 40 percent in malaria cases from august 2009 to august 2010,” she noted, adding that the indoor residual spraying also contributed to the fight against Malaria.

According to the 220-page report, which summarized information from 106 malaria-endemic the reasons for these resurgences are not known with certainty but illustrate the fragility of malaria control and the need to maintain intervention coverage. 

"The experiences in Rwanda and Zambia also indicate that monthly monitoring of disease surveillance data, both nationally and sub-nationally is essential. Since many countries in sub-Saharan Africa had inadequate data to monitor disease trends, it is apparent that greater efforts need to be made to strengthen routine surveillance systems,” the report, released December 14 read.

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