Over 14,000 Malaria cases for 2021

Nov 08, 2021 News

Kaieteur News- The Ministry of Health has recorded thus far an alarming 14,786 Malaria cases from a total of 61,663 tests for the year, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony said.
He said the government is going all out to fight the disease. However, the Health Ministry is teaming up with a number of international organisations and universities to carry out studies aimed at reducing the spread of Malaria across the regions.

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony.

“So we have collaboration right now with the Harvard School of Public Health. They are helping us to do a number of studies as it relates to transmission of Malaria, modeling the disease and using new techniques to understand how to reduce transmission,” Minister Anthony explained. He said funding for the studies is being done by Gates Foundation. Government has also partnered with Oxford University and the University of Cape Town to assist Guyana in its elimination of Malaria.
“We want to understand whether that is happening in Guyana, as it did in other parts of the world, and if it is happening, then we’ll have to change our treatment schedules to make sure that whatever medicines we’re using are effective in eliminating Malaria,” Minister Anthony said.
Minister Anthony further explained that a customised approach has been adopted to combat the disease especially in Regions Seven and Nine, which have a high prevalence of Malaria.
“You know, very often when we apply our malaria strategy, we tend to have a one size fits all but the peculiarities of the region might not allow for such an approach to work properly and so what we’ve done is to customise an approach in Region Nine and in Region Seven for the elimination of Malaria and we have been implementing that.”
Meanwhile, the Government has been working along with the International Office for Migration (IOM) to access hard-to-reach communities. “And we are subcontracting them on the global funding grant that we currently have. So, they are going to help us to train people in those communities to work with them on Malaria elimination activity,” Minister Anthony noted. The Health Ministry recently embarked on the distribution of insecticide impregnated bed nets, to further prevent the transmission of the dreaded disease. Additionally, 57,076 bed nets have so far been distributed in Regions One, Seven and Nine and an additional 74,000 will be distributed in various parts of the country before the end of the year.

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