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Guyana achieves target in malaria reduction

Jan 10, 2009 News

Guyana has achieved its goal in the reduction of malaria for 2008.
Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy had targeted having less than 10,000 new infections for last year; and in an interview with this newspaper recently, he divulged that the actual figure for the period under review was less than 8000.
This represented a 25 per cent decline in the decease over 2007.
He attributed this accomplishment to a number of factors, chief among which is increased education and awareness of the infection.
This, he noted, has resulted in patients refraining from the detrimental practice of seeking medical intervention at pharmacies and ‘corner shops,’ rather than accessing the proper diagnosis and treatment available at the public health centre.
“This practice has in the past been a source of great concern for us at the Health Ministry, because there are at least three types of malaria prevalent in Guyana, and not getting a proper diagnosis and follow-up treatment can make things worse, because the patients continue to be ill and are therefore able to spread the disease.”
The minister has, for five years, been advocating that persons who believe they are infected with malaria visit the public health institutions, since many private sector entities “buy whatever medication they could afford and distribute them to patients, sometimes with scant regard for the specific strain of the disease.
“A person can have falciparum — the most dangerous type of malaria, with the highest rates of complications and mortality — and could be given treatment for Vivax instead…
“This is the kind of thing that has been happening in the private sector, and finally, people are beginning to listen.”
The increased availability of efficient services to treat with malaria is also cited for the decrease in the disease.
The minister noted that almost every health centre around the country is now equipped to deal with patients suffering from the disease.
The distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets have also aided in the reduction of malaria cases.
As a prevention mechanism against the spread of malaria locally, the Health Ministry, a few years ago, initiated the bed net programme to families in areas more at risk to bites from the Anopheles mosquito
Training efforts to teach persons how to correctly diagnose malaria using a microscope; ongoing education campaigns; private sector partnerships; and a more reliable supply of the artemisinin-based combination therapy Coartem to treat the disease were further attributed to the decrease in malaria.
Although Coartem needs to be taken for three days, Dr Ramsammy said, some people do not complete their treatment regimens.
According to Dr Ramsammy, there are three different strains of malaria in Guyana, all of which require different types of treatment.
He said that more than half of all malaria cases in the country are from the Plasmodium Vivax parasite.
In 2009, focus will continue to be placed on the ‘hot spots’ for the disease in the interior regions of the country, where the disease in more of a challenge than on the coast.
The locations closest to Guyana’s borders are also to come under focus; and in this regard, a meeting with the Health Ministers of Venezuela, Suriname and  Brazil are scheduled for next month.
In 2005, Guyana saw a 90 per cent reduction of malaria cases, the highest in ten years.
Guyana recorded 84,017 malaria cases in 1994, but the number dropped to 39,978 in 2005. There were 22,000 fewer recorded cases in 2006 than in 2005.
The number of malaria deaths has, however, not been significant for a few years, according to Dr Ramsammy.
He further pointed out that, as the rates of new infections continue to drop, the levels of reduction each year will be more modest.
Malaria is an infective disease caused by sporozoan parasites that are transmitted through the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito.

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