Kagadi Hospital in Kibaale district has been overwhelmed by malaria patients.
The medical superintendent, Dr. James Olowo, said even patients with simple malaria cases that would be treated at the health centres were going to the hospital.
“Records show that the number of malaria patients has more than doubled compared to the same period last year. The hospital registers about 40 malaria patients daily. As a result, we have run out of first-line drugs,” Olowo said.
He attributed the increase to the number of patients to the phasing out of the HOMAPARK, which used to be the first-line treatment of malaria at the community level.
Olowo said the hospital and community drug distributors had not been supplied with the first-line treatment for malaria, Coartem, in three months.
He added that the people who were mostly at risk were children under five years and expectant mothers who become anaemic.
Olowo urged residents to sleep under mosquito nets, slash bushes and remove stagnant water to stop the breeding of mosquitoes.
Statistics show that after the rainy season, Kibaale district experiences high malaria prevalence due to the many mosquito breeding grounds.
