THE Sadc region’s fight against malaria is being affected by serious financing challenges as well as other constrains, Health and Child Care minister Douglas Mombeshora has said.
Officially opening the Sadc malaria report validation meeting in Harare this week, Mombeshora highlighted several challenges affecting the regional push to eliminate malaria.
The meeting, held annually, provides member States an opportunity to update each other on their preparedness for the upcoming malaria transmission season.
It also prepared the draft regional malaria annual report to be released in November this year.
According to Mombeshora, previous Sadc malaria reports faced several challenges, including inadequate technical and human resource capacities for national malaria programmes in most countries.
He said there was also inadequate financing for the malaria strategic plans, and limited domestic financing for operations in most member States, sub-optimal key malaria interventions, delayed interventions due to procurement bottlenecks and weak or ill-defined cross-border collaboration mechanisms.
“What is of great concern is also the fact that these issues have been summarised into the Annotated Agenda Items for the Health ministers with some recommendations for approval or adoption by the ministers,” Mombeshora said.
Malaria, according to the World Health Organisation, remains a serious public health problem, with more than five million people at risk of contracting the disease annually in Zimbabwe.
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The disease accounts for about 40% of outpatient attendances in the moderate to high transmission districts, especially during the peak transmission period.
By August 2023, the country had recorded 144 508 positive malaria cases, with Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Manicaland, Matabeleland North and Masvingo provinces contributing 97% of the cases.
Meanwhile, Mombeshora has recommended that the malaria technical committee considers developing a minimum recommended malaria elimination programme which can be adopted by countries in the fight against malaria.
