Malaria claims 125 lives

last month amid reports of serious shortage of drugs in most districts.
A further 71 858 people have so far been treated of the disease.
Of the cases, 9 549 were reported in the week ending April 3 with 2 007 of the cases being children under the age of five.
According to information from the Cholera Control and Command Centre (C4) epidemiological update, highest cases of malaria in week ending April 3 were recorded in Mashonaland East that saw 3 354 people being treated and 2 193 in Manicaland province.
To date, 10 districts namely Mudzi, Kariba, Mutoko, Mutasa, Kadoma, Mutare city, Rushinga, Makonde, Chimanimani and Mutare rural have recorded outbreaks. Meanwhile, people seeking treatment from some of the districts where outbreaks have occurred have complained that some were being told the malaria drug coatermether was out of stock while others got it.
Although no official comment could be obtained from the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, sources confirmed that malaria drugs were delivered last week.
“There were no new supplies all along. They were only delivered last Friday,” said one source.
He further said because of the delay in procurement of malaria supplies, health centres that had ran out of rapid test kits were administering treatment without carrying out any investigation. With coatermether, patients were supposed to be tested first for malaria and only if they are positive can they be given treatment. But in this case, since there were no kits to test people they ended up treating people on suspicion that it could be malaria, thereby creating unnecessary demand on the available treatment. And for the first time since we introduced coatermether, we ran out of the drug,” he said.
Malaria is the second largest killer disease in Zimbabwe after HIV and Aids. Although some districts have malaria throughout the year, in most of the districts it is seasonal. The malaria peak season is between March and May.