Why malaria fight in Tanzania must be people-centred

Sunday, September 01, 2019 — updated on April 10, 2021 - 10 min read

Top: A woman and her baby sleeping under an insecticide-treated bed net. Anti-malaria campaigners say the fight against the disease must be seriously extended to community and households level. Below: Tanzania National Malaria Movement (Tanam) CEO Beatrice Minja during an interview with The Citizen in Dar es Salaam this week. Photo | Syriacus Buguzi

What you need to know:

As countries marked World Mosquito Day—an annual event aimed at raising awareness about the causes of malaria and its prevention last week, the question remained as to what needs to be done to end malaria.

In Tanzania, stakeholders believe that if good health systems are put in place, enough funding for prevention is guaranteed and leaders are fully committed, then the war on malaria is bound to be won.

On another front, the Tanzania National Malaria Movement (Tanam) says the fight against malaria needs to be taken to the people or rather communities.

Tanam CEO Ms Beatrice Minja who has been in the malaria fight for over two decades explains to The Citizen’s Assistant News Editor Syriacus Buguzi why people-centered or community-based collaborations are touted as workable models for building trust in campaigns that require the uptake of malaria interventions. Excerpts...

Our focus, right from the beginning, has been on eliminating malaria. We understood that as a single organization, we couldn’t do it. So, we mobilised NGOs, community-based organisations (CBOs), faith-based organizations and other groups to get one voice that we need to push the malaria agenda. Through that voice, we have managed to advise the government on which way to take in the malaria fight. For instance, we understood that by relying on CBOs, we could reach out to households and this could reduce the government’s burden. That way, it was possible to mobilise resources through CBOs to reach the people affected by malaria at community level. We owe the biggest part of our successes in empowering communities. Our advocacy wasn’t only about mobilising resources through CBOs, but also it was about advising the government to make use of local products to build sustainability. For example, we advocated for the A to Z factory. You see, we as a country used not to have permanent substances to treat bed nets. We used not to have nets that were not rerated in the factory. That was tedious business. So, we advocated for transfer of technology that gave rise to the A to Z factory. We went ahead to advocate the use of larvicides.

No. The country hasn’t utilized it fully because we are not seeing the products in the market. We, as Tanam, went to the factory when it was launched and we wanted to establish how its marketing strategy would be and also know its market share that can be available for Tanzania. But, since that time, we haven’t seen the product on the market even as we have our market share in it. Why aren’t we utilizing the products? Well, we learned that there was no marketing strategy and when you don’t have this, it means the distributor is not known, it means that there are logistical challenges. We also went ahead to test if the communities had the ability to make use of it, and assume the responsibility of controlling malaria vectors by using the bio-larvicides, we realized that the community was ready. The community is ready and can indeed make use of it. It’s only that the authorities in the country have to create a good marketing strategy for it and find how best they can put the product in the market.

Theoretically, the government has a good malaria strategy that is guiding the programmes. But within the strategy, there are few malaria innervations that are currently running. There are those which are not. For example, currently there is more push for the use of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs). It has helped, but ITNs cannot eliminate malaria. There has been the use of ACT that’s combination therapy-we are seeing achievements in this. But we need a combination of strategies now. There is still a gap and some other strategies are yet to be implemented. As we look forward to eliminate malaria by 2030, the government needs to review the model of how we engage people, partners, and other sectors. We need to use a multi-sectoral approach in dealing with malaria so that we can tap into every opportunity and all interventions can be rolled out.

Why malaria fight in Tanzania must be people-centred

What you need to know:

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