Kenya ramps up efforts to eliminate malaria

Kenya has set specific milestones and targets as part of a national framework to strategically eliminate malaria by 2030, the global deadline set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eradicate the disease.

Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Mutahi Kagwe on Wednesday, revealed the ministry was employing several tactics to eradicate the disease. One of them being the distribution of mosquito nets.

CS Kagwe explained that between May and December 2021, 16 million Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets (LLIT) were distributed to 25 million men, women, pregnant women and children in 27 counties with the highest burden of malaria.

"The Ministry distributed 1.8 million LLIT bed nets in 36 counties to pregnant women and children under a year old who are the groups most vulnerable to adverse outcomes of malaria infection,” said Kagwe.

A child gets a malaria vaccination at Yala Sub-County hospital, in Yala, Kenya, on October 7, 2021. - World Health Organization (WHO) approved using the malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, on children between 5-month to 5-year old in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts with moderate to high malaria transmission after the malaria vaccine implementation programme (MVIP) in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi since 2019. (Photo by BRIAN ONGORO/AFP via Getty Images) Pulse Live Kenya

50% reduction in prevalence rate

CS Kagwe went on to reveal that despite the constant threat of Covid-19, the ministry was able to achieve 100 per cent coverage of bed net distribution.

He also added that over the last decade, Kenya has managed to reduce the burden of malaria by 50 percent from a prevalence rate of 11 percent in 2010 to 6 percent in 2020.

Another strategy deployed by the ministry will be the utilisation of malaria vaccine among children in regions with moderate to high malaria transmission. "Over 45,000 children have received their full course of four doses of the vaccine," CS Kagwe said.

More than 750,000 doses of the vaccine have so far been administered to children in the Lake Victoria basin malaria endemic regions. CS Kagwe added that 275,000 children in Kenya have received at least one out of the four scheduled doses of the vaccine.