Over 9,000 cases of malaria recorded in 2016

Jan 03, 2017 News

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– as strategic efforts made to control vector borne illnesses

More than 9,000 new cases of malaria were recorded across the 10 administrative regions during the course of last year. The majority of cases were detected in Region One.

This is according to Minister of Public Health, Dr. George Norton, who during his Ministry’s year-end press conference last Friday revealed that the number of new cases recorded has amounted to some 9,415.
In 2015 about 8,000 cases of malaria were recorded by the Ministry of Public Health’s Vector Control Services Unit.
This suggests that there has either been an increase in cases or the Ministry has been able to improve its surveillance capacity in order to detect more cases. Malaria is transmitted by the female anopheles mosquitoes. Its symptoms include: shaking chills that can range from moderate to severe, high fever, profuse sweating, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and anemia.
In its efforts to heighten detection of malaria during the course of the past year, Minister Norton said that a pilot project was rolled out in 2016 which saw the training of miners in Region Eight to use malaria rapid testing kits and to administer treatment for uncomplicated cases of malaria.
Ninety-six miners from mining areas such as Black Water, Jumbie Creek, Micobie, and Konawaruk were trained.
Operations Training Officer of the Vector Control Services Unit of the Public Health Ministry, Keith Moore, had during the past year revealed that the Ministry embraced the initiative to train miners with a view to having malaria diagnosed quickly.
This move, he said, translated to miners being taught how to do rapid malaria tests and also to take blood smears. “We train them to treat according to the diagnosis. We will give them the drugs to treat, we will teach them how to treat and we will give them everything they need to do that work,” Moore said.
He, however, asserted that “we are looking for one type of treatment so this service is not going to be extended to children and pregnant women.”
The initiative, according to Moore, was deliberately designed to help ensure that miners in particular are diagnosed early and treated early. This is important, Moore noted, since it has been proven that once patients are subjected to early treatment they have a better chance of recuperating properly.
The camp that the Ministry has used to pilot the initiative is one that is owned by a miner Ian Best, in whose care all equipment, drugs and other materials to deal with malaria are kept. The camp, Moore said, is situated in Region Eight beyond Mahdia thus miners who become inflicted with malaria will no longer have to wait to be taken to the Mahdia Hospital for treatment since they can now be treated immediately.
However, reports of cases, Moore said, are still being sent to the Mahdia Hospital and it is entered into the system there. According to Moore, “the initiative has been working…we are getting the reports. I have been there and I have seen people being treated.”
He noted that while the work being done at the ‘pilot’ camp has already been accepted “we need to have it done on a wider scale.”
The initiative, according to Moore, will essentially help to take pressure off of the public hospitals in terms of malaria treatment.
Meanwhile, Minister Norton at his recent press conference disclosed that efforts towards fighting malaria in Guyana continued during the past week with the training of health care workers in malaria case management. Seventy-nine persons from Regions One, Seven and Eight were trained and training is currently ongoing in Region Nine.
Twenty-two health workers were trained from the remaining regions of Guyana. Training of health-care workers at the Georgetown Prison was also conducted.
According to Minister Norton, the Mission of the Vector Control Services Unit is to improve the control of vector-borne illnesses throughout Guyana by implementing tools such as vector surveillance, early diagnosis and treatment, information, education and communication, among many others in an effort to have a healthier nation.
But in order to be as efficient as possible, Minister Norton revealed Friday that the Vector Control Services Unit has three sub-programmes in place. These are Malaria, Aedes-borne illnesses and Neglected Infectious Diseases.
Minister Norton explained that the Malaria sub-programme has a targeted focus on the fight against the Anopheles mosquitoes ranging from vector control interventions to diagnosis and treatment. As part of the efforts to advance the fight against malaria last year, Minister Norton said that routine distribution of long-lasting insecticide nets at public health facilities in the malaria endemic regions continued in 2016 as well.
In 2016, there was increased public awareness of Malaria, which saw measures such as the designing and erecting billboards in Regions Seven and Nine, designing and printing pocket guides on the use of the malaria rapid tests, printing and distribution of colouring books on malaria prevention and control for school-aged children in the malaria endemic regions.
And there were some notable achievements under the Malaria sub-programme including the reduction in the number of recorded Malaria cases from 13,245 in 2015 to 11,149 in 2016, the launching and monitoring of the Region Eight Pilot Project for miners and the recognition of health workers involved directly in malaria case management both centrally and regionally.
For the Aedes-borne illnesses sub-programme, in 2016 surveillances continued for the Aedes Aegypti larva and other species of mosquitoes breeding, which transmit dengue, malaria and yellow fever, according to Minister Norton. In fact he revealed that a verification and treatment cycle is in progress, whereby eliminating the larval stages (aquatic stage) of the vector, with the use of Temphos insecticide is being done.
Other activities conducted in 2016 to fight Aedes-borne illnesses included educating persons in households about the importance of keeping their houses and surroundings free from mosquito breeding grounds and the inspection of incoming vessels/ships for mosquito larvae.
In the Neglected Infectious Diseases sub-programme moves were made to look at several illnesses with particular focus on improving health awareness and designing programmes to facilitate their elimination in cases where it may be possible, according to Minister Norton. These diseases, he said, included Leishmaniasis, Chagas, Lymphatic Filariasis, Soil Transmitted Helmithiasis and Leprosy.
The main achievement of this sub-programme in 2016, Minister Norton said, was the conducting of the Mass Drug Administration (MDA) exercise which saw pill distributors going house to house to distribute the DEC and Albendazole pills to protect against Filaria.
The exercise was conducted in Regions Four and 10 from September 5-19 and in Regions Three and Five from September 19 to October 3. A mop up exercise was also conducted during all the weekends of October as well as a few week days, according to Minister Norton.
A total of 276,968 persons were treated during the MDA exercise in the aforementioned regions. This was the first time that the MDA was implemented in Region Ten.
Minister Norton revealed, too, that 868 pill distributors, 96 field officers and four field supervisors were trained to execute the distribution exercise for the MDA.
Under this programme, the regions have been invited to play a more meaningful role in the execution of campaigns.
Apart from the MDA, the Public Health Minister said that 178 patients were seen and treated as a part of the surveillance component of the Lymphatic Filariasis programme in 2016. Of these persons, 20 had Lymphodema.

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