5th phase indoor spraying set for next month

As part of the government’s plan to further reduce the spread of malaria, another round of Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) in high risk sectors of the country will begin next month. The Head of the Malaria unit in TRAC-plus, Dr. Corrine Karema, yesterday said that negotiations with partners are still underway, but that so far, 53,000 sachets of insecticide are available for spraying 73,902 households. “The exercise which was initially supposed to start this month will begin in three weeks’ time. We delayed due to various issues concerning negotiations with partners, but we are certain that once again the target population will be covered,” Karema said. The previous phase which took place in October last year, covered 1.3 million people of which 228,127 are children below the age of five. TRAC-plus officials say that IRS can only succeed if there is public communication, mobilization and education prior to spraying. “In the previous IRS, we did not meet any obstacles because the public was ready, so we managed to cover 97.7 percent of households in the high risk districts instead of the targeted 85 percent,” another TRAC official said. Statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that every year, more than 1 million people worldwide die of malaria, most of them children under five. IRS together with other interventions such as distribution of insecticide treated bed nets, and decentralization of medical services, are among the major reasons attributed to the 60 percent significant reduction of malaria in the country. This year 2.4 million mosquito nets will be distributed countrywide. Ends

National

5th phase indoor spraying set for next month