Malawi Govt unveils Malaria Communication Strategy

The Malawi Government on Tuesday unveiled the first-ever Malaria Communication Strategy, which seeks to help in making follow ups on how the districts are responding to the fight and prevention of the disease.

Malaria is one of the most killer diseases. In Malawi, the disease is reported to be claiming hundreds of productive lives annually thereby depriving the country of its much-needed human resource to develop.

The unveiling ceremony took place at Kabudula ADMARC Group in the outskirts of the Lilongwe City where thousands of Malawians gathered to join the rest of the global village in commemorating this year’s World Malaria Day.

The World Malaria Day falls on 25 April every year. Malawi commemorated the day with a call to invest, innovate and implement more in eliminating the disease.

Speaking after she unveiled the strategy, Deputy Minister of Health, Halima Daud, pressed for more collaboration, stressing this is key to eliminating the disease.

Daud said the government is keen on ensuring that Malawi attains a malaria-free status by 2030.

“As a country we are doing better in eliminating malaria as today we have awarded some of the districts that have responded well in the fight against this disease since last year when the President launched the zero malaria campaign. So, I can say there is progress,” she said.

World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative for Malawi, Neema Kimambo, said malaria remains a significant public health and development challenge, not just in Malawi, but the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Kimambo therefore called for the scaling up of efforts to eliminate the disease.

“A lot of efforts are being put in place, but we are not yet there that is why we need to continue these efforts to make sure that we reduce these numbers Malawi is contributing to that part of 95 percent0, which is in Sub Saharan Africa, so that we can indeed reach zero malaria,” she said.

The theme for this year’s World Malaria Day was: TIME TO DELIVER ZERO MALARIA, INVEST, INNOVATE, IMPLEMENT, TOGETHER WE BUILD A FREE MALARIA WORLD.

Meanwhile, Kasungu has been awarded as the most outstanding district in the response to the elimination of the disease since the malaria zero campaign commenced last year.

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