05/09/2015
Kampala- Malaria has been ranked the number one killer disease claiming at least 80,000 people, both adults and children under five years every year, according to the Ministry of Health sector performance report released yesterday.
The report highlights pneumonia both in adults and under fives in the second position, killing at least 2,849 in this period
Other diseases include anaemia, perinatal conditions, meningitis, tuberculosis, injuries, acute diarrhoea and septicemia among others.
However, the report falls short of the deaths due to non-communicable diseases such as cancers, diabetes and heart diseases among others.
The report also highlights the number of malaria cases reported at health facility level having increased from 13 million to 15.7 million in the last one year.
This means nearly half the entire population suffered from malaria despite all the interventions put in place to combat the disease that has remained killer number one for the last 15 years.
However, the officer in-charge of the Malaria Control Programme in the Ministry of Health, Dr Myers Lugemwa, said despite the increase in the number of new cases, the number of malaria deaths has reduced from 356 daily, a figure that has been considered one of the highest in the region, to about 270 deaths per day.
“In the past we were losing a child every 30 seconds due to malaria in Uganda, with acceleration of interventions like indoor residual spraying and use of insecticide treated mosquito nets, the number has reduced to one death every one minute,” he said in an interview with the Daily Monitor yesterday.
The State Minster for Health, General Duties, Dr Ellioda Tumwesigye, said most of the diseases killing Ugandans are preventable if the government invested significantly in primary health care commodities such as infrastructure, health work force, and immunisation commodities.
Solution
“We would get rid of pneumonia for instance if we immunised all our children against the disease,” Dr Tumwesigye said.
I am happy we are rolling out the Pneumococcal vaccine and at the same time positive that we will see positive progress in the next five to ten years in terms of pneumonia illnesses and deaths,” he added.
He also noted that the ministry was currently reviewing the results of the indoor residual spraying piloted in the 10 districts of the northern region.
However, fighting malaria completely may not be possible because it will require a considerable amount of money which is not tenable at the moment.
Currently, the ministry can afford to spray only two districts per year.
Ironically, while the officials say there is not enough funds to carry out the exercise, the government and development partners combined current expenditure on malaria treatment and management is estimated at about $360m (Shs900 billion).
Experts say the money could be cut by more than a half if malaria illnesses can be prevented through scientifically proven interventions like residual spraying and sleeping and treated nets.
On the question of anemia, the minister said most cases are usually as a result of severe malaria which can be prevented if efforts are taken to curb it.
NUMBERS
36%: Percentage of all illnesses that malaria accounted for in this financial year
