By Hassanatu L. Sillah
November 03, 2020 (232News)
FREETOWN – According to the Malaria Focal person for the Bombali District; Mohamed Rashid Kargbo, Malaria is more deadly than COVID-19 because it continues to claim the lives of more people compared to the pandemic.
Kargbo made this disclosure while speaking to SALONE TIMES NEWSPAPER in Makeni; Bombali district. He explained though malaria still remains a major heath concern and challenge in the country, Bombali is currently doing well in the prevention of malaria compared to other districts in the northern Region. He noted that though a more recent survey had not been done, the outcome of the 2016 survey that the Ministry of Health and Sanitation did shows that Bombali has about thirty eight (38%) percent of malaria prevalence and this was the lowest in the northern Region.
According to Kargbo, ever since country recorded it first corona case in March this year, the ministry and its officials knew there will be a huge challenge with patients using health facilities since it was the same case with the Ebola outbreak. In order to gauge the prevalence of malaria and the do a comparative analysis between the malaria and COVID-19, a comparison was done to cover the period January to for both 2019 and 2010.
Rashid disclosed that they did the analysis from 2 folds-under-fives and above fives looking at the period January to June 2019 and 2020. Generally, suspected cases for under five is five three hundred and eighty five (53805) for under-fives and out of this number, twenty nine thousand four hundred and two (29402) while the positives cases were twenty one seventy hundred and thirty six (21736).
From January to June 2020, they recorded thirty nine thousand, one hundred and twenty nine (39129) suspected cases of malaria in the district and thirteen thousand four hundred and ninety four (13494) proved positive. For the period under review, there is a twenty percent (20%) decrease in malaria infections compared to last year for under-fives in the district.
Also, there is a decrease with over-fives with a small margin as health facilities don’t get many cases from these sets of people. On the whole Kargbo affirmed, the Health Ministry treated all of the malaria related cases they recorded and that he said is very good thing.
He dilated on the different strategies they are using to curb malaria amongst which includes the distribution of malaria treated bed Nets to communities and monitoring them to ensure that they use the nets. In the fight against malaria, the malaria Focal person in Bombali said they continue to many challenges like the refusal of certain individuals to use the bed nets either because they claim it produce more heat and disturbs their sleeps.
At the earlier part of the COVID-19 outbreak in Sierra Leone, they got some challenges with regards to getting patients to report at the health facilities. Through massive sensitizations, they started to get more patients turning up. This was as result of the perception the people have had about the health facilities that if you go there, they might say you have Corona Virus.
He emphasized that malaria has killed more people compared to the COVID-19 noting the number of fatalities caused by the Corona is far less than malaria related death in the country. He advised the general public to use the bed net and not to sell them because this will not help the fight against Malaria.
