Date: 11/12/2005
Source: Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: SADC Malaria Day
Speech by the Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, on SADC Malaria Day, Bambanani Sports Field, Umkhanyakude District, KwaZulu-Natal
Programme Director
Ministers of Health from the SADC region MECs
Mayor and councillors present
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
We are here today in KwaZulu-Natal to commemorate the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Malaria Day. Commemoration, in our context, is to remember and to honour. It is to observe and to celebrate some of our achievements. We remember those who have suffered from malaria and particularly those who lost their lives. We observe this day to remind you that malaria is a disease that can be prevented, treated and cured. Therefore no one needs to die from this disease. We honour our healthcare workers and our partners who are working tirelessly for the cause of controlling malaria. We also celebrate the successes we have gained in preventing, treating and curing malaria in South Africa and in the SADC region.
You will also notice today, we have among us Ministers and senior officials from neighbouring countries that are joining us in our commemorations of SADC Malaria Day 2005. We are grateful for their presence and participation in this year’s event. Our sustained collaboration is pivotal to ensuring that the fight against Malaria is optimised, at country level, across borders and in the SADC region.
This year’s slogan for SADC Malaria Day has been chosen as: “Protect your family spray your house”. We have chosen this slogan because we believe that Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) is the most important and effective strategy for controlling malaria. The evidence for this is that in South Africa we have kept malaria transmission under control using this strategy since the beginning of a formalised Malaria Control Programme.
South Africa has a seasonal unstable malaria transmission and our communities are not immune to malaria. We need to remind the communities that you should comply with our Malaria Control Programme spray teams when they come to spray their houses.
For indoor residual spraying to be effective, we need to achieve a minimum of 90% spray coverage. Last year, the average spray coverage was 83%, for the malaria-affected part of the country. One of the main reasons for not achieving the optimal coverage was a lack of community compliance with spray teams to have their houses sprayed. I therefore urge health officials, specifically the health promotion teams to work with the community and community leaders to raise awareness and ensure good understanding of why houses need to be sprayed. Please remember we spray houses to kill malaria mosquitoes so that we can prevent malaria transmission in our communities.
My challenge to you as the community and malaria control workers is to increase the coverage to 90% during the current spraying, which started about two months ago. We will review the coverage at the end of this season to see what progress all the three provinces that are affected by malaria have made in expanding spraying coverage.
In the past two years, we have been able to keep malaria cases below 14 000 each year. This is low compared to approximately 65 000 cases in 2000. We have scaled up our health promotion campaigns throughout the malaria season to improve community awareness. We have also trained nurses and doctors in the affected provinces on effective malaria case management. We have stocked up on insecticides and artemesinin-based combination drugs and we are ready for this malaria season. The strength of malaria preparedness efforts is truly tested after the rains have fallen. From the southern Africa regional outlook forecast, we have been informed that in the coming season there will be increased chance of an above average rainfall in southern Africa. This means that we should be on full alert, so that we can prevent and contain malaria epidemics timeously and therefore reduce the risk of malaria infection, manage cases effective and prevent deaths.
Let me remind you that in the SADC region, 88 million people live within malaria transmission areas where 14 million children and 4 million pregnant women face a high risk of contracting the disease. It is also estimated that approximately 250 to 300 000 people die from malaria each year in the region. This is unacceptable, especially for a disease that can be prevented, treated and cured.
South Africa is committed to the fight against malaria in the SADC region. As a testimony to this, we made efforts to support the drafting of the SADC Malaria Protocol and Plan for scaling up malaria control in SADC. This Protocol was launched in Victoria Falls in 2001.
I call on all of us in SADC to review the SADC Malaria Protocol, for therein the plan does exist, detailing how we can combat malaria in SADC. It is also critical to ensure that we continue to mobilise resources for implementation of regional malaria control initiatives. In 1999, Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland launched the Malaria Control Component of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative. This Project has been very successful indeed. Through mainly the use of indoor residual spraying coupled with effective malaria drug usage, we have managed to decrease malaria transmission in Mozambique (Maputo province) and in South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal province) by more than 90% and in Swaziland by more than 70% compared to the 2000 baseline surveys.
Most of our successes have come from the use of DDT during the Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) Programme. South Africa has extensive experience in the use of IRS; hence we are very keen to share our experiences in the use of this intervention and assist with training. We note the recent developments where the international community, including the World Health Organisation has finally acknowledged the critical role of indoor residual spraying using DDT. This is a significant development particularly for South Africa and SADC which have been emphasising the use of this insecticide at the time when the world was restricted from using DDT.
I would like particularly to thank our President, President Thabo Mbeki, for the support he has given us as the Department of Health to continue using DDT despite the strong lobby against the use of this affordable and the most effective vector-control intervention.
I will be failing in my duties if I do not mention the mass community and media mobilisation campaign undertaken to raise awareness of Malaria in the SADC region - the Race Against Malaria. This campaign was very successful in raising the malaria profile amongst governments, healthcare workers, media and the general public. Most importantly, the campaign reached out to communities affected by malaria in the region.
The Race Against Malaria was very successful because of partnerships amongst various sector including public health sector, Military Health Services and the private sector. Partnerships are critical if we are to win the fight against malaria in the region. The Race Against Malaria has laid the foundation for these partnerships on malaria control. It is imperative that we link up all the four sub-regions of Africa in the fight against malaria. We believe that the African Union-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU-NEPAD) accelerated project for Malaria Control in Africa provides an ideal framework for such cooperation. It is time for Africa to rise to the occasion and meet the challenges of controlling malaria.
The blue prints for the AU-NEPAD Malaria Programme will come from the plans that have already been drafted by expert technicians all over Africa. With endorsement from our Heads of State and support from all our partners, we can identify the commonalties in each of the regional plans and work together to accelerate malaria control programme implementation on the ground. I would like to thank all of you for this commemoration of the SADC Malaria Day a success.
It is noble to remember those who have suffered and died from malaria. It is important to celebrate our successes. However, of paramount importance is to continue to work together to sustain and build from the advances we have made in controlling malaria and improving the health of all the people of Africa. Let’s all work together and beat malaria in South Africa, SADC and in Africa.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Health
11 November 2005
Source: Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: SADC Malaria Day
Speech by the Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, on SADC Malaria Day, Bambanani Sports Field, Umkhanyakude District, KwaZulu-Natal
Programme Director
Ministers of Health from the SADC region MECs
Mayor and councillors present
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
We are here today in KwaZulu-Natal to commemorate the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Malaria Day. Commemoration, in our context, is to remember and to honour. It is to observe and to celebrate some of our achievements. We remember those who have suffered from malaria and particularly those who lost their lives. We observe this day to remind you that malaria is a disease that can be prevented, treated and cured. Therefore no one needs to die from this disease. We honour our healthcare workers and our partners who are working tirelessly for the cause of controlling malaria. We also celebrate the successes we have gained in preventing, treating and curing malaria in South Africa and in the SADC region.
You will also notice today, we have among us Ministers and senior officials from neighbouring countries that are joining us in our commemorations of SADC Malaria Day 2005. We are grateful for their presence and participation in this year’s event. Our sustained collaboration is pivotal to ensuring that the fight against Malaria is optimised, at country level, across borders and in the SADC region.
This year’s slogan for SADC Malaria Day has been chosen as: “Protect your family spray your house”. We have chosen this slogan because we believe that Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) is the most important and effective strategy for controlling malaria. The evidence for this is that in South Africa we have kept malaria transmission under control using this strategy since the beginning of a formalised Malaria Control Programme.
South Africa has a seasonal unstable malaria transmission and our communities are not immune to malaria. We need to remind the communities that you should comply with our Malaria Control Programme spray teams when they come to spray their houses.
For indoor residual spraying to be effective, we need to achieve a minimum of 90% spray coverage. Last year, the average spray coverage was 83%, for the malaria-affected part of the country. One of the main reasons for not achieving the optimal coverage was a lack of community compliance with spray teams to have their houses sprayed. I therefore urge health officials, specifically the health promotion teams to work with the community and community leaders to raise awareness and ensure good understanding of why houses need to be sprayed. Please remember we spray houses to kill malaria mosquitoes so that we can prevent malaria transmission in our communities.
My challenge to you as the community and malaria control workers is to increase the coverage to 90% during the current spraying, which started about two months ago. We will review the coverage at the end of this season to see what progress all the three provinces that are affected by malaria have made in expanding spraying coverage.
In the past two years, we have been able to keep malaria cases below 14 000 each year. This is low compared to approximately 65 000 cases in 2000. We have scaled up our health promotion campaigns throughout the malaria season to improve community awareness. We have also trained nurses and doctors in the affected provinces on effective malaria case management. We have stocked up on insecticides and artemesinin-based combination drugs and we are ready for this malaria season. The strength of malaria preparedness efforts is truly tested after the rains have fallen. From the southern Africa regional outlook forecast, we have been informed that in the coming season there will be increased chance of an above average rainfall in southern Africa. This means that we should be on full alert, so that we can prevent and contain malaria epidemics timeously and therefore reduce the risk of malaria infection, manage cases effective and prevent deaths.
Let me remind you that in the SADC region, 88 million people live within malaria transmission areas where 14 million children and 4 million pregnant women face a high risk of contracting the disease. It is also estimated that approximately 250 to 300 000 people die from malaria each year in the region. This is unacceptable, especially for a disease that can be prevented, treated and cured.
South Africa is committed to the fight against malaria in the SADC region. As a testimony to this, we made efforts to support the drafting of the SADC Malaria Protocol and Plan for scaling up malaria control in SADC. This Protocol was launched in Victoria Falls in 2001.
I call on all of us in SADC to review the SADC Malaria Protocol, for therein the plan does exist, detailing how we can combat malaria in SADC. It is also critical to ensure that we continue to mobilise resources for implementation of regional malaria control initiatives. In 1999, Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland launched the Malaria Control Component of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative. This Project has been very successful indeed. Through mainly the use of indoor residual spraying coupled with effective malaria drug usage, we have managed to decrease malaria transmission in Mozambique (Maputo province) and in South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal province) by more than 90% and in Swaziland by more than 70% compared to the 2000 baseline surveys.
Most of our successes have come from the use of DDT during the Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) Programme. South Africa has extensive experience in the use of IRS; hence we are very keen to share our experiences in the use of this intervention and assist with training. We note the recent developments where the international community, including the World Health Organisation has finally acknowledged the critical role of indoor residual spraying using DDT. This is a significant development particularly for South Africa and SADC which have been emphasising the use of this insecticide at the time when the world was restricted from using DDT.
I would like particularly to thank our President, President Thabo Mbeki, for the support he has given us as the Department of Health to continue using DDT despite the strong lobby against the use of this affordable and the most effective vector-control intervention.
I will be failing in my duties if I do not mention the mass community and media mobilisation campaign undertaken to raise awareness of Malaria in the SADC region - the Race Against Malaria. This campaign was very successful in raising the malaria profile amongst governments, healthcare workers, media and the general public. Most importantly, the campaign reached out to communities affected by malaria in the region.
The Race Against Malaria was very successful because of partnerships amongst various sector including public health sector, Military Health Services and the private sector. Partnerships are critical if we are to win the fight against malaria in the region. The Race Against Malaria has laid the foundation for these partnerships on malaria control. It is imperative that we link up all the four sub-regions of Africa in the fight against malaria. We believe that the African Union-New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AU-NEPAD) accelerated project for Malaria Control in Africa provides an ideal framework for such cooperation. It is time for Africa to rise to the occasion and meet the challenges of controlling malaria.
The blue prints for the AU-NEPAD Malaria Programme will come from the plans that have already been drafted by expert technicians all over Africa. With endorsement from our Heads of State and support from all our partners, we can identify the commonalties in each of the regional plans and work together to accelerate malaria control programme implementation on the ground. I would like to thank all of you for this commemoration of the SADC Malaria Day a success.
It is noble to remember those who have suffered and died from malaria. It is important to celebrate our successes. However, of paramount importance is to continue to work together to sustain and build from the advances we have made in controlling malaria and improving the health of all the people of Africa. Let’s all work together and beat malaria in South Africa, SADC and in Africa.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Health
11 November 2005
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