Top civil servant in the Ministry of Health Chris Kang’ombe on Wednesday admitted that the country’s reliance on tobacco has affected the fight against malaria as there are resistance to the adoption of use of Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT) spraying which is proven to eradicate the fatal disease.
First published on Tobacco Free Malawi.
DDT was banned due to
environmental and toxic effects, but the World Health Organisation has
recognised that spraying the insecticide can eradicate malaria, as
since the ban there has been increase in the incidents of malaria in
South America and Africa.
“I would say yes it is a difficult
choice, either we forgo all the foreign exchange that the country
depends on tobacco or we accept to continue sacrificing 7,000 lives
that we lose due to malaria,” Kang’ombe said.
He said the
Ministry had started the process of consultations and it was still
optimistic that the officials in the Ministry of Agriculture which are
concerned that the country’s green gold could not be bought if traces
of DDT are found in the leaf are convinced.
Malawi according to
Kang’ombe experiences at least six million incidents of malaria,
resulting in 40 percent of the country’s health budget being taken up
by the fight against the disease which can easily be eradicated.
“We
are trying to make the economic argument of matter. You reduce or
eradicate malaria, you have a healthy person, reduced morbidity and
mortality which have both huge costs on the public resources,” said
Kang’ombe.
Director of Preventive Health Storns Kabuluzi said he
believes the use of DDT is a matter of time as there is enough evidence
from the current indoor residue spraying using ICON10CN in Nkhotakota
has shown effectiveness in preventing malaria.
“We are trying
to find way of accommodating the economic and agricultural needs. The
problem that the agriculture people are expressing is that some people
use their own homes to cure tobacco and we will be spraying the same
homes. May be we can try to advocate for methods that are differentiate
the two,” said Dr. Kabuluzi.
WHO Malawi officer-in-charge
Richard Banda said the quantities that could be used for spraying DDT
are very small as compared with the use of the same chemical in
agriculture.
“I believe there will be a time that we should be
able to use it as the quantities cannot have any major impact on the
agricultural sector as feared,” said Banda.
Malawi joined the
Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) commemoration of malaria
this week as part of efforts to raise awareness on the diseases which
has claimed 20 million children since the banning of DDT.
Statistics
indicate that an average 350,000 people reported at the country’s
health facilitates with malaria while 21 million were recorded sick in
the SADC region resulting in 300,000 deaths.
“Malaria illness
causes death, inhibits tourism and affects external investment. Malaria
prevents children from attending school. Women are four times likely to
suffer from malaria during pregnancy resulting in low birth weight,
miscarriages and still briths,” said Kang’ombe pleading with Malawians
to use free nets government has been distributing to prevent malaria.
Tobacco
has been a major challenge to implementing public health programmes in
the country including the smoking controls and now malaria as
Government has argued over its economic importance.
However
public health specialists argue that the benefits of public health
programmes will reduce health bills, poverty induced by diseases and
deaths and also have economically productive citizenry.
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