Africa-Press – Zambia. Ministry of Health in Nakonde District of Muchinga Province, has engaged various stakeholders to help in the fight against Malaria.
Nakonde District Administrative Officer, Alex Sinkala thanked the stakeholders for their respective efforts to eliminate Malaria in the region.
Speaking when he officially opened the stakeholders advocacy meeting in Nakonde yesterday , Mr. Sinkala implored participants to help disseminate information to the community.
“We are not here for fashion, but because we have this honour. The stakeholdership is not supposed to end here, we should not discuss issues here and when we go back we keep them to ourselves for our benefit. Then the message will not actually be transmitted,” he said.
He further encouraged the participants from various sectors such as traditional leaders, the clergy, the media, education and local government to be keen to learn from the workshop as they are representatives of their communities.
“You are important stakeholders because we understand you also have structures under you in the whole of Nakonde, so even the messages you are going to learn from this meeting are for the benefit of the whole Nakonde,” he said.
And Speaking at the same event, Nakonde District Health Director, Arthur Mataka has appealed to stakeholders to come on board and help eliminate malaria.
Dr. Mataka acknowledged that Ministry of Health cannot fight Malaria alone without input from other participants.
“We might not manage to end Malaria by December, 2021 as earlier planned but we are on course. Our ambition to end Malaria still stands and by 2022 will be proud to have fought against it,” he said.
A variety of Malaria interventions such as indoor residual spraying, long lasting insecticide and mosquito nets will be used by health authorities to curb the disease in the area.
“We will use these three main methods to help us get rid of malaria in our communities. We can easily achieve this goal if we all work together,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nakonde District Health Promotions Officer, Gertrude Chipampe has urged people in communities to make use of the mosquito nets distributed to them and not just bank them in their houses.
Ms. Chipampe also discouraged the habit of self- administering of drugs whenever someone is unwell and advised the residents to always visit health facilities for assistance.
“Those mosquito nets we give out are distributed for a reason so as a ministry we would like to see people in our communities make use of them so that we can reduce cases of malaria.
“ Also, it has come to attention that a lot of people have a habit of self-diagnosing sicknesses and putting themselves on medication without visiting the clinic. That should not be the case,”she said.
