THE government has scrapped off all charges for treatment and medicine provided to malaria patients in government hospitals in the country.
Health, Community Development, Gender,
Elderly and Children Minister Ummy Mwalimu told a news conference here
that patients would be required to pay consultation fees only. “Other
charges like malaria diagnosis and medication will be free of charge
effective from now in all government hospitals.
I direct all regional and district
medical officers to supervise this new government policy effectively,”
the minister stressed. She was giving a government statement on the
World Malaria Day 2016 when she declared further that the efforts to
eliminate the deadly disease have started showing positive results as
there is a significant decrease of malaria cases.
The analytical report on HIV and Malaria
indicators, the minister said, has shown that transmission of the
disease has decreased by 50 per cent from 18pc in the 2007/2008 year to
10 pc for 2011/2012 financial year.
Ms Mwalimu said, however, that despite
such decline of transmission cases, statistics show that malaria was
still a big problem especially in villages as compared to urban centres.
According to the minister, the transmission rate in rural areas was
10.7 per cent as opposed to 3.4pc in urban areas. She pointed out
further that there was a hard task ahead despite such positive steps in
fighting the disease.
The minister noted that the statistics
also show that 12 million people get malaria each year in the country
with pregnant women and children under the age of five years being the
most vulnerable.
“Our aim is to reduce transmission of
the malaria by 5pc in 2016 and 1pc by 2020. This is possible. Each one
of us has a duty of taking part in the war against malaria,” the
minister emphasised.
Ms Mwalimu took the opportunity to
congratulate retired President Jakaya Kikwete for his efforts to combat
the deadly disease both inside and outside the country, which led him to
be awarded a “White House Summit Award,” in April, this year.
She pledged that her ministry would
continue with other stakeholders to implement other strategies to reduce
the transmission of the disease and later eradicate the same in the
country.
She named the strategies as preventing
the mosquitoes using different methods, notably using long term treated
bed-nets, indoor residual spraying, cleaning of environments and
destroying insecticides.
According to the minister, there would
be speedy malaria diagnosis using Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs)
and using Artemether/Lumefantrine (ALu) as the first line drug for
treatment for patient proved to have diseases’ parasites.
She said that Sulfadoxine/ Pyrimethamine
(SP) would be provided to pregnant women in special periods. The
minister further encouraged the people to continue using treated bed
nets to contain the disease.
Ms Mwalimu further pointed out that the
exercise of distribution of the nets countrywide was going on well as 18
regions in Tanzania Mainland have been covered with over 20 million
nets have already been distributed at a ratio of one net per two
persons.
According to the World Health
Organisation (WHO), since 2000, malaria mortality rates have declined by
60 per cent globally. In the WHO African Region, malaria mortality
rates fell by 66pc among all age groups and by 71pc among children under
5 years.
The advances came through the use of
core malaria control tools that have been widely deployed over the last
decade: insecticidetreated bed-nets, indoor residual spraying, rapid
diagnostic testing and artemisinin-based combination therapies.
In 2015, all countries in the WHO
European Region reported, for the first time, zero indigenous cases of
malaria, down from 90,000 cases in 1995.
The Global Technical Strategy for
Malaria 2016- 2030, approved by the World Health Assembly in 2015, calls
for the elimination of local transmission of malaria in at least 10
countries by 2020. WHO estimates that 21 countries are in a position to
achieve this goal, including six countries in the African Region, where
the burden of the disease is heaviest.
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