By SYLVESTER MWALE –
HEALTH Minister Chitalu Chilufya says the Government has a shortfall of US$335 million required to eliminate malaria by 2021 and appealed to donors to help the country mobilise the required resources.
Zambia has seen a significant drop in both malaria morbidity and mortality rates with the disease morbidity falling by 70 percent in the last five years.
But Dr Chilufya said a total of US$694 million was needed towards the efforts of eradicating Africa’s number one killer disease, over the next four years.
He expressed confident that the country would be able to eradicate the disease with increased domestic funding, which had continued to increase over the years as well as the support from the cooperating partners.
Dr Chitalu said this in Kabwe yesterday during the commemoration of the World Malaria Day which also coincided with the launch of the National Malaria Business Plan.
“We have costed the fight against malaria and it will cost us US $694 million; we have a gap of around US $335 million and we believe with our cooperating partners, with our business plan and increased domestic financing, we should be able to breach this gap and malaria elimination is within our reach,” he said.
He said the Government with the support of the cooperating partners had put place various interventions against malaria over the past few years which had resulted in the notable gains.
Dr Chilufya called for sustained evidence-based high impact interventions such as indoor residual spraying, Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets distribution, case management, and Social behaviour change.
The Government had also distributed more than 10 million mosquito nets across the country as a measure to prevent malaria and plans to carry out residual spraying across the country.
At the same function UNDP resident coordinator Janet Rogan noted that malaria was a global and regional priority which had continued to exert a negative impact on families and communities while affecting socio-economic development.
“It kills approximately 400,000 people in the world annually, and therefore, countries have committed to ending malaria by 2030 as one of the targets of the Sustainable development Goals,” Ms Rogan said in a speech read for her by WHO officer-in-charge Dr Mary Bwalya.
Earlier USAID Zambia mission director Patrick Diskin said the US government through the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) had invested heavily in countries like Zambia with the aim of eradicating the disease with a long term vision of eliminating it.