Health Ministry battles increased malaria cases

Jun 19, 2009 News

Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy ,has said that his Ministry will not win the fight against malaria.
He said that health workers are currently battling to keep the number of cases from increasing.
The Health Minister made this disclosure while addressing a Vector Control workshop for local public health workers of the Ministry of Health Vector Control Unit and city council workers in vector control, which was hosted on Wednesday by Geddes Grant.
Minister Ramsammy said that in the 1930’s and the 1940’s, malaria accounted for more than one-third of the deaths of adults in Guyana.
He added that more than half of the admissions in the Georgetown Public Hospital and New Amsterdam Hospital were because of malaria, while at present, all of their malaria cases come from the interior.
Over the years, the Ministry has had tremendous success in their fight against malaria in the hinterland.
In the early 1990’s, more than 94,000 cases were recorded, while in 2008, only 11,000 malaria cases were recorded by the Health Ministry.

The Health Minister noted that in spite of all that is being done to prevent malaria cases from increasing, the ministry is still struggling to deal with the issue.
“Despite the things that we have done, like introducing better medication, better trained people, and distributing mosquito nets, we are not going to win the battle.
Right now, the malaria staff in the Ministry of Health, in the private sector, and all of us working together are having a tremendous battle on our hand just to keep it where we have it now and it’s threatening to take off again.
Because unless we deal with the environment, we cannot win the battle,” the Health Minister said.”
Minister Ramsammy also alluded to the dengue situation in the country, which he noted has now become an epidemic in Guyana. At the end of May, a total of 600 cases of dengue were recorded.
According to Dr. Ramsammy, most of the cases come from Regions Four and Nine and half of it comes from Georgetown.

“What it underlines is that we must take serious action in terms of our environment. Vector control is not a matter of eradicating a nuisance; it is about preserving and guaranteeing health.”
In this regard, he added that the city council has no capacity for vector control.
“There is no single municipality in Guyana, an RDC, or an NDC that have maintained any comprehensive capacity for vector control.
I believe that the municipalities, RDCs and the NDCs are failing their population by not seriously addressing the issue of vector control.”
The Health Minister stressed the point that the fight against vector control is not a government one and the corporate partnership is a significant one, which is needed in the fight against the infection.
(Fareeza Haniff).

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Health Ministry battles increased malaria cases

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