Lessons from Zanzibar: How the isles beat malaria

Health & Science Reporter

Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

Through various interventions, Zanzibar has maintained malaria prevalence below one percent for the past decade

“In 2005, we introduced Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs). A year later we introduced blanket indoor spraying followed by mass campaigns for use of bed nets. What has enabled us to maintain the numbers has been a surveillance system we introduced in 2008 for weekly detection of the patterns of malaria transmission, which was followed by a malaria case notification system introduced in 2012 where every case was followed from point of detection to their home to figure out the source of transmission and whether there were more people infected,” explains Ms Abbas. “This meant that by 2013, any resident of Zanzibar suspected to be infected with malaria was followed up, tested, and put on treatment early enough. The use of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) allow trained community members to perform malaria diagnosis accurately and prescribe appropriate treatment, reducing as much as possible, any delay between the onset of fever and treatment,” notes Fredros Okumu, director of science at the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) in Tanzania.

Lessons from Zanzibar: How the isles beat malaria

What you need to know:

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