27 Jun 2022

As few as three in every 10 000 people in Botswana may get Malaria this year.

The figure, which presents a 30 per cent drop in cases over the last 13 years to last year, places Botswana well on its way to eliminating the disease by 2025.

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi revealed this Thursday when speaking at the Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) summit during the 26th Commonwealth Heads of State Meeting (CHOGM) here.

“We have reduced our cases of Malaria from 10,07 per cent per 1000 in 2008 to now 0.3 per 1000 people in 2021,” he said.
 It does not end there. Mortality will reduce to overall about seven people during the same period.

The reduction, said Dr Masisi, was due to Botswana’s commitment to the health of its people, which saw the country cumulatively committing in excess of 20 per cent of its national budget since independence.

Consequently, government was able to build good infrastructure and a highly functional health system, which continued to facilitate Malaria intervention programmes.

“Key interventions in place, include surveillance; enhancing and optimising case detection and case management and strengthening public health education,” he said, at the same time applauding women for their outstanding role in the efforts.

He said the programmes also included continuous cross-border collaborations with Botswana’s endemic neighbours.

Dr Masisi said these measures were aimed at attaining universal coverage of appropriate prevention and treatment for all at-risk populations; strengthening social behaviour communication, community engagement as well as building capacity of the national Malaria programme for effective leadership and coordination of its elimination.

With support of partners such as WHO, Botswana continued to build a resilient healthcare system whereby it could effectively fight epidemics such as Malaria, which it intended to eliminate in the next two and half years, he said.

With regard to Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), the President said Botswana recognised the importance of investing in their fight, restoring dignity and health to communities and affected individuals.

He said the diseases were pushing Africa further into poverty as in addition to huge amounts of money needed for their fight, they also left many people disabled.

Adding to Africa’s financial misery, was termination of funding, which made the fight against the diseases all the more difficult, and occasioned unnecessary suffering of its peoples.

“I note with concern that over the years, NTDs have seen a gradual reduction in funding,” he said.

Adding to an already bleak situation for the continent was the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in disruption of primary healthcare services, and upset interventions for both Malaria and NTDs.

“We call on and ask for support for building resilient healthcare systems through revitalisation of primary healthcare, which is appropriate.

And I urge leaders of the Commonwealth to avail more resources to be committed to the agenda as we build back and better,” he said.

Embracing Dr Masisi’s presentation, Prince Charles said the Commonwealth had a vital role to play in ensuring that Malaria incidence was halved by 2023 through collective effort.

“We must also acknowledge the burden of NTDS is also a huge issue because 46 of the 54 Commonwealth countries - or two thirds of the world’s burden - are at risk,” he said.

 He added that while more had been achieved, there remained a great amount to do. Prince Charles said the meeting should therefore signal the necessary focus and prioritisation of funding for therapeutic prophylactic and vaccine strategies for Malaria.

Also in agreement, Rwanda President Paul Kagame called for more support towards ending Malaria by 2030.

He implored African countries to mobilise financial resources for quality healthcare systems. President Kagame said COVID -19 had taught the world that together, through coordinated and collaborative action, more could be achieved, and countries must  have the same approach to fighting Malaria.

Meanwhile in a separate interview, Dr Masisi said Botswana supported the reappointment of Baroness Scotland of Dominica to the position of Commonwealth Secretary General.

Baroness Scotland beat Jamaica’s Kamina Johnson Smith 27 to 23 votes. BOPA