Fight Against Malaria : Related Deaths Drop As Partners Seek Way Forward

The fight against malaria in Cameroon and elsewhere in Africa is being impeded by the Coronavirus pandemic. However, the government of Cameroon and its partners are not leaving any stone unturned in ensuring that malaria is effectively rolled back in all the nooks and crannies of the country. In this light, the coordination meeting of implementing partners for Malaria Control activities in the country took place on Thursday January 28, 2021 in Yaounde. The meeting analyzed the implementation of malaria control activities for last year and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on these activities. The aim was to capture the lessons learned and establish a better plan of action this year in the fight against malaria.
Presiding at the meeting was the Permanent Secretary of the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), Dr Dorothy Ashu. She said the programme wants to work effectively with partners through a single consolidated plan for all malaria control actors and one implementation framework, in a bid to know who is doing what and where. This is to successfully follow-up malaria control programmes, have one monitoring and evolution agenda. Dr Dorothy Ashu said Covid-19 had a serious impact on the performance of activities to curb malaria in the country. In 2019, she explained, some 91 per cent of activities were covered, whereas last year the performance rate dropped to 84 per cent. Certain activities were delayed such as the routine malaria control. She however observed that the number of malaria cases to health facilities dropped as well as the mortality rate, which also decreased between 2019 -2020. According to statistics from NMCP, in 2019, the malaria programme registered 4,500 malaria related deaths in 2019 and 4,100 ...