Zambia is almost malaria free

In a little more good news today, Zambia is almost malaria free. The success is credited to increased funding and a lot of hard work. This year's World Health Report says that malaria deaths have declined in Zambia by 66 percent.

From All Africa, writer Doreen Nawa Gethsemane Mwizabi gives us this analysis on the good news, as well as an example of a family who have opened up to mosquito spraying.

This result along with other supporting data indicates that Zambia has reached the 2010 Roll Back Malaria target of more than 50 per cent reduction in malaria mortality compared to 95 per cent in 2000.

Although, still too early to register the impact, Zambia joins the ranks of four African countries among them Rwanda, Tanzania and Sao Tome and Principe who have achieved major reductions in malaria deaths through accelerated malaria control activities.

In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria has remained a major cause of death in children and pregnant women.

The Abuja 2000 Declaration on Roll Back Malaria declares the disease accounts for about one million deaths in Africa and 50,000 in Zambia annually.

In Zambia it has had a negative impact on economic growth as well as the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), therefore reaching the target is like a dream come true.
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Mrs Chalwe Mofya who lives in Lulamba Township, about nine kilometres away from Chingola town centre says, she and her family of 12, had until now, been constant malaria patients.

Like many other families in the community, her family was a regular at Lulamba Health Centre.

But the situation has been different since the 54-year-old widow opened her home to indoor spraying.

It has been four years since any member of her household has suffered from malaria.

At first Mrs Mofya was against spraying because of the smell and inconvenience that came with it but all that has changed.

"I hated this business of cleaning the walls and shifting property in the house," she said.

At national level, the community has been appreciative save for a few pockets of resistance attributable to insufficient or poor sensitisation.