Malaria fight boosted in Siaya as NGOs supplement government efforts

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The fight against malaria has been significantly strengthened in Siaya with NGO’s joining the County government with a view of injecting new ideas, and strategies aimed at reducing illness and death in children under the age of five.

According to Siaya County Malaria Coordinator Ms Eunice Oreri, in a significant step forward for malaria prevention in Siaya, three non-governmental organizations funded by Globcom, and Presidential Malaria Initiative/USAID have joined the county government program to combat malaria.

“We have Break-Through Action(NGO) that is being funded by Presidential Malaria Initiative that coordinates and networks malaria preventive programs,” said Oreri adding that the Country Health Information Systems and Data Use(CHISU) stands for malaria surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation.

Oreri further said the efforts were boosted by Afya Ugavi that seeks to strengthen malaria testing and medicines.“We also have PROPEL Health that is not restricted to supporting malaria disease control but other health related programs,” said Oreri.

She added that there’s also Impact Research and Development Organization(IRDO) that is being funded by GlobCom to support initiatives aimed at reducing malaria at the grassroots.

“We also have REACH Malaria that deals with malaria prevention programs at the health facilities adding that with NGOs supplementing the County government in Siaya, the current 29 per cent malaria prevalence will reduce significantly” said Oreri.Apart from identifying gaps in the fight against malaria, said Oreri, we are also crafting Annual Development plan that would guide health department and its partners in ending malaria in Siaya.In the plan, we are going to put more efforts on six prevention measures such as long-lasting insecticidal nets, malaria in pregnancy drugs, malaria treatment,Oreri said they are going to roll out malaria campaign programs to remind Siaya residents on the need to uphold measures meant to fight it(malaria).“we are capacity building our health care providers on ways of detecting and treating malaria. We would want out people to embrace prevention measures,”

We also want to intensify Monitoring and Evaluation in a bid to gather evidences that would tell whether we are making steps in the fight against malaria or not,” said Oreri. “Working with our partners, we’re committed to supporting the ongoing efforts to protect, save the lives of young children and lower the malaria burden in the Siaya .”

Malaria remains a huge health challenge in the African region, which is home to 11 countries that carry approximately 70% of the global burden of malaria.

The region accounted for 94% of global malaria cases and 95% of all malaria deaths in 2022, according to the World Malaria Report.

“The African region is taking positive steps in scaling up the rollout of the malaria vaccine – a game-changer in our fight against this deadly disease,” Progress against malaria has stalled in these high-burden African countries since 2017 due to factors including climate change, humanitarian crises, low access to and insufficient quality of health services, gender-related barriers, biological threats such as insecticide and drug resistance and global economic crises. Fragile health systems and critical gaps in data and surveillance have compounded the challenge.To put malaria progress back on track, WHO recommends robust commitment to malaria responses at all levels, particularly in high-burden countries; greater domestic and international funding; science and data-driven malaria responses; urgent action on the health impacts of climate change; harnessing research and innovation; as well as strong partnerships for coordinated responses. WHO is also calling attention to addressing delays in malaria programme implementation.