Gulu to start mass anti-malaria treatment

Sep 05, 2015

Gulu district is to embark on mass fever treatment as a strategy to bring down the rising cases of malaria in the district.


By Cornes Lubangakene                     

Gulu district is to embark on mass fever treatment as a strategy to bring down the rising cases of malaria in the district.

The acting district health officer Dr Robert Ongom said the district has registered 140, 000 cumulative cases of malaria with 72 deaths since the disease outbreak in ten districts, mainly in Acholi and Lango sub regions in May this year.

He was Friday speaking at Sports View Hotel in Gulu at the closure of a five-day training of 48 community health workers and youth peer providers by Flama Uganda, a body providing health services through private health facilities

 “We are embarking on a strategy that is heavily going to involve the village health teams (VHTs) in what we called the mass fever treatment.

“Our VHTs are going to be treating any uncomplicated malaria. Any fever in the community right now is taken to be uncomplicated malaria,” said the health official.

“We are training two VHTs per village. We train them and give them the medicine to go in the community and treat because our health workers are breaking down due to heavy workload.

“We used to handle about 700 cases of malaria in a week but now we are handling thousands of cases,” said Dr Ongom.

The most affected category, he explained, is children under five years and pregnant women. He said the under-five-year olds are very important because the government planning in the health sector is based on the children of that age category.

The VHTs will also sensitise the community in simple and basic health practices that should be adopted as a way of preventing malaria.

“We should just sleep under mosquito nets and seek medical attention within the next twenty four hours and it will be treated. Let’s make good use of the mosquito nets.”

On the training, Dr Ongom commended Flama Uganda for their commitment in providing the training in health sector which will help in closing the gap in the district health service delivery.

Gulu district chairman Martin Ojara said parents should prioritize the health of their family members to ensure proper health management within their homes.

“There are parents who leave their children to overstay with sicknesses without taking them for treatment. Most people say they first have to finish [working on] a certain portion of their gardens as their sick children suffer in the homes, which is wrong,” he said.

The trainers who would be working in enhancing health service deliveries in six selected private health facilities in Pader, Gulu, Amuru and Nwoya were given bicycles to ease their mobilization work.

Flavia Teddy Okello, the executive director of Flama Uganda, said they have received shs2bn from Planned Parenthood Global to enhance and improve the health private practitioner’s centres in order to deliver quality health service to the communities. 
 

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