[Zimbabwe] Call to fight spread of malaria in

from African News Dimension

ZIMBABWEANS should intensify taking preventive measures against contracting diseases such as malaria to enable the Government to channel resources towards other development issues, Vice President Cde Joice Mujuru said yesterday

She said resources being used by the Government on treatment could easily be diverted towards development programmes if people took preventive measures seriously.

Although malaria is a largely preventable and curable disease, it continues to be one of the top killers of people in the country, a situation that needed to change, she said.

She was speaking during the commemoration of the Africa Malaria Day at Dotito High School in Mt Darwin, one of the malariaprone districts.

This year’s Africa Malaria Day was commemorated under the theme “Get your ACT together” accompanied by the slogan “Universal access to effective malaria treatment is a Human Right, which advocates for the promotion of Atermesinin Based Combination Therapy (ACT) in the treatment of malaria”.

The World Health Organisation has recommended ACT for effective malaria treatment.
“Every household should have some basic knowledge about health. They should know how important it is to be able to prevent diseases.

“If a family ensures that it keeps healthy, then fathers and mothers can work in the fields and their families as well as the whole country will have enough to eat,” Cde Mujuru said.

It was every mother’s duty, she said, to strive for hygiene in their homes, as this was the best way of ensuring that their families would remain healthy.

She appealed to people to play their part in maintaining good health saying while the Government and partners like the United Nations, Population Services International, World Health Organisation and others could fight to provide drugs, spray households as well as insecticide treated nets — it was up to the people themselves to make these useful.

Some people have in the past refused to open their homes to spraying teams while others use the nets as fishing nets or for display.

“I urge those in mosquitoprone areas to support our efforts by opening their homes and also those who are given mosquito nets to make use of them,’’ she said.