Indoor Spraying Cuts Down Malaria

Marc Nkwame | 24 Sep 2012
Tanzania Daily News Indoor Residual Spraying against mosquitoes in the lake Zone regions of Kagera, Mwanza and Mara have succeeded in reducing Malaria prevalence from 41.1 per cent in the highly affected areas, down to just 10 per cent.

This was stated in Arusha over the weekend by the Zonal RTI Manager, Dr Pius Tubeti during the "Training of National Indoor Residual Spraying Capacity Building Core Team," which was being conducted here and involving over 40 participants.

"Muleba and Bukoba districts in Kagera region had the highest prevalence rate of Malaria in the country at 41.1 per cent, as per the 2007 figures, but this went down to 10 per cent by 2010 after the IRS project was initiated in the lake zone and this percentage continues to drop," said Dr Tubeti.

He explained that the Indoor Residual Spraying currently using 'Icon' Pyrethroid is conducted every nine months, with the insecticide being sprayed on walls of houses in the selected affected areas and this will continue until the prevalence has been brought down to less than 1 per cent.

According to Dr Tubeti, a total of 1,224,095 house structures, accounting for nearly 95 per cent have been sprayed by May 2012 in the Lake Zone project, which has also seen 6,340,333 people getting protection against malaria in the process and among these were 180,624 pregnant women and 1,383,447 children aged below five years.

Dr Renata Mandike, the Acting Programme Manager for the National Malaria Control Pragramme, said there were challenges facing the initiative especially on how to carry out periodical spraying without making the mosquitoes resistant to the chemicals.

"We may have to keep changing the pesticides on rotational basis," she stated, adding that the project was also very expensive to undertake once developing partners cease to support it.

Apparently, it takes US $4 to spray a single residential premises which means the Lake Zone project (with 1.2 million houses), has so far cost US $4.8 million (equivalent to 7.5 bil/-). In Zanzibar, a total of 194,808 house structures (94.6 per cent) have so far been sprayed and 1,033,742 people protected from Malaria, of which 23,458 were pregnant women and 180,995 were children under five years of age.

Official figures indicate there is approximately 60,000 Malaria deaths annually in which 80 per cent involve children less than five years. It is also estimated that malaria deaths consume 3.4 per cent of GDP, $240 million every year. The project has sprayed more than 1 million structures with nearly 100 per cent coverage, protecting approximately 8 million people from malaria.

As a result of IRS, malaria prevalence in Zanzibar is at a near undetectable level. In Zanzibar, the project is now 80 per cent run by local partners and the project has trained more than 15,000 IRS personnel in Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania, including national supervisors, team supervisors, spray operators, enumerators, drivers, district management officers and community sensitizers.

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