Malaria deaths reduce

Saturday, May 1, 2010 (The Mirror Pg 21)

By Rebecca Kwei
THREE million six hundred thousand cases of malaria were recorded at the Out Patients Department in the country last year.
Out of these 3,900 deaths due to malaria were also recorded during the same period.
The Programme Manager of the National Malaria Control Programme, Dr Constance Bart-Plange, who gave the figures, however, noted that the story was not so gloomy since the country was making progress in the fight against malaria.
For instance she said there had been a drastic reduction in deaths due to malaria in the country and the World Health Organisation had estimated that between 2003 to 2009, 20,000 lives of children under five years would be saved.
Dr Bart-Plange was making a presentation on the topic “Malaria Control in Ghana — Where are we?” at a workshop organised by the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN) as part of activities marking this year’s World Malaria Day which fell on April 25.
This year’s world theme was “Counting Malaria Out” while AMMREN chose the sub-theme “Counting Malaria Out in Partnership with the media”.
Dr Bart-Plange said many sicknesses present the same symptoms as malaria and it was important any fever presented at the health facility was properly confirmed through microscopy or rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) to be malaria.
She said the current malaria preventive strategies were indoor residual spraying, Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) , Sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) to prevent malaria in pregnant women, environmental management and targeted larviciding.
She expressed concern that some health personnel were still prescribing monotherapies and emphasised that the first line drug for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria was artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) such as artesunate-amodiaquine or artemether-lumefantrine.
“No more chloroquine, no more camoquine alone, no more artesunate alone for the treatment of malaria” she added.
Speaking on the topic “Linking Science to Journalism”, the General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association, Dr Sodzi Sodzi Tettey, called on media personnel to interpret information to suit the target audience so that it would be able to bring about behavioural change and effective policies.
“Science can no longer be comfortable publishing the results of papers in ivory towers and journalism can no longer be comfortable with neutral reporting on events. We must both go beyond our comfort zones, beyond the call of duty into advocacy mode,” he added.
The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana and Head, Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, University of Ghana Medical School, Dr Alex Dodoo, said the INDEPTH Network Effectiveness and Safety Studies (INESS) will provide a platform to examine the real life safety and effectiveness of anti-malarials in several districts in four African countries.
The countries are Ghana, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Mozambique.
In Ghana the project took off last year in research sites in Dodowa, Kintampo and Navrongo.
The Executive Secretary of AMMREN, Mrs Charity Binka, said this year’s celebration of the Malaria Day gave another opportunity to re-strategise on kicking malaria out of Africa and the world.