HEALTH

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Uganda's health ministry has said it will distribute free mosquito nets in Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso districts next week.

The five-day distribution exercise will begin on Monday (December 18), the ministry said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.

In the post, the ministry is urging people to "sleep under a mosquito net every night to prevent malaria".

And for good measure.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Uganda has the world’s highest malaria incidence rate of 478 cases per 1,000 population per year.

The country has been experiencing a new burden of malaria since January 2022, with cases rising higher by the end of that year.

Malaria is the leading cause of sickness and death in the East African nation and is responsible for up to 40% of all outpatient visits, 25% of hospital admissions and 14% of all hospital deaths.

The malaria death rate in Uganda is estimated to be between 70,000 and 100,000 deaths per year; a toll that exceeds that of HIV and AIDS.

Using insecticide-treated nets is considered by the UN's health agency as one of the two core interventions in malaria control and elimination. The other is Residual spraying.

But one emerging threat to global malaria control is resistance to insecticides among Anopheles mosquitoes.

Another, according to the World Malaria Report 2022, is the "changing behaviour of mosquitoes, which appear to be biting early before people go to bed and resting outdoors, thereby evading exposure to insecticides".

The stats

The 2022 report indicates that there were 47 million cases of malaria in 2021 compared to 245 million cases in 2020.

In 2021, the estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 619, 000 compared to 625, 000 in 2020.

Also in 2021, the WHO African Region was home to about 95% of all malaria cases and 96% of deaths, with children aged under five accounting for about 80% of all malaria deaths in the region.

Uganda's eastern and southern neighbours DR Congo (12.6%) and Tanzania (4.1%), together with Nigeria (31.3%) and Niger (3.9%) accounted for just over half of all malaria deaths worldwide.