By Janet Sesay
April 25th every year is celebrated across the world as World Malaria Day.It is an opportunity for everybody to help talk about and tackle the most serious health problem in Sierra Leone and Africa in general. This year Sierra Leone joins partners countries in the world in promoting this Day with the theme “ZERO MALARIA STARTS WITH ME”.
The theme underscores the collective energy and commitment and also empowers individuals to personal commitments to save more lives, help communities and economies to thrive by ending malaria. In Sierra Leone. The slogan for this year is “YU GET WAMBUDI? GO HOSPTUL WANTEM”.
Speaking to the media yesterday at the medical stores, New England Ville in Freetown, Director for Program Control at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Samuel Johanna Smith noted that the world has made historic progress against malaria by saving millions of lives but that half of the world’s population is still at risk from this preventable and treatable disease which cost a child life within every two minutes.
He said the overall aim of celebrating this day is to focus on the attention of policy makers, donors, partners and the wider public on the need to sustain progress in malaria prevention and control and continue scaling up malaria interventions towards malaria elimination and it represent a chance for everybody to make a difference.
He said malaria is endemic in Sierra Leone and the country entire population of over seven million people is at risk of infection and this is a disease is one of the leading cause of death and illness in the country.
He said World Malaria Day was instituted at the 60th session by World Health Organization (WHO) members and during this session they highlighted that malaria was not only limited to Africa but it scattered in other parts of the world and so they commemorates this day to create awareness about malaria and the devasting impact it has on the lives of more than three billion people and it creates the opportunity to help communities thrive to end malaria.
He furthered that in Sierra Leone, malaria remains a public health concern and everybody is at risk, but the most vulnerable groups are pregnant women and children under five years but this disease is curable and treatable.
Dr Evelyn Ahyko, Chief Pantry Vector at the World Health Organization also did a presentation where she stated that World Malaria day is commemorated country wide and that the specific objectives of this day is to creates awareness and improve knowledge for malaria control interventions and delivery systems at all levels and also to promote individuals to make commitments to end malaria and also share and learn from each other experience in tackling malaria.
She furthered explained that, this day help to empowers individuals to make personals commitments to save lives, help communities and economies to thrive by ending malaria and this is an occasion set to highlight the needs to continue engagement with country leaders, organizations and citizens to push harder to sustain and accelerate the benefit to prevention and to press further to reduce infections and ensure universal access to diagnostic and treatment of this disease.
She said reducing the diseases burden and eliminating malaria are intrinsically linked to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals as agreed by every United Nations Members.
She furthered that everybody should sleep under a treated bed net every night because insecticide treated bed nets are safe to use, free and protect the whole family and also children under one year needs extra protection against malaria and every child under five years should be taken to the hospital during immunization to receive anti-malaria medication from qualified health care worker.
She ended that pregnant women also need extra protection against malaria and so they need to visit antenatal checkup and take the anti-malaria medication prescribed by a qualified health care professional.