Sheila Ponnie
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. President Salva Kiir on Wednesday signed a “zero malaria” campaign aimed at controlling the disease.
The zero-malaria campaign started last November during the county’s first national malaria conference, which brought together the government and health partners to renew efforts towards ending malaria.
Last year’s conference called for multisectoral collaborative approaches to target interventions to reduce malaria infection and death as quickly as possible in order to achieve universal health coverage.
On Wednesday, the national Minister of Health, Yolanda Awel Deng, met President Salva Kiir, and the latter officially signed the new “Zero Malaria” campaign in South Sudan.
“As part of his commitment to end malaria-related deaths, the President signed the new campaign banner under the theme; “Zero Malaria in South Sudan Starts with Me.”
The document focuses on creating awareness to save vulnerable lives, especially children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with underlying health conditions.
The 2022 conference sought to formulate ways through which the government and partners can work together to strengthen the national institutions to address the key drivers of malaria, which include flooding, food insecurity, and population displacement.
Malaria is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality by a wide margin, putting 100 per cent of the population at risk, according to the Severe Malaria Observatory. South Sudan is one of the 22 countries with the highest malaria burden in the world, accounting for 1.3 percent of all global malaria cases and deaths in 2020, and 1.2 percent of global malaria deaths. South Sudan accounted for 5.7 per cent of malaria cases in East and Southern Africa in 2020. Between 2017 and 2020, the case burden of malaria increased slightly by 3.3 per cent, while deaths increased slightly by 1.2 per cent.
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