29 Jan 2013

The Minister of Health, Dr John Seakgosing has encouraged residents of Sepopa and Eretsha in the Okavango sub-district to open their houses for spraying to fight malaria.

Speaking at a kgotla meeting in the two villages recently, Dr Seakgosing said he was impressed that at least 85 per cent of people allowed their houses to be sprayed and pleaded with the remaining 15 per cent to cooperate so that by 2015 they would be no new cases of malaria.

“Let us open our houses for us to make malaria disappear by 2015. We need to work together to win this fight,” he said. He also said it had come to his attention that some people did not want their houses sprayed while others were never home.

Minister Seakgosing said last year, there were 13 cases of malaria and only one person died. He noted that the progress was impressive even though they did not want anyone to die.

The minister also spoke about teenage pregnancy which he said was too high. He said it was worrisome to find 13-year-olds becoming pregnant as their bodies were not ready for pregnancy.

He said when taking action against children, parents should be careful not to abuse them. He also discouraged residents to stop abusing alcohol as it fuelled HIV/AIDS infections.

He raised a concern that people just took condoms from health facilities and did not use them for protection while government invested a lot of funds procuring them.

Okavango MP, Mr Bagalatia Arone applauded the minister and highlighted that health services in his area were challenged. He said there were no vehicles in clinics and that the most painful issue was that patients taking ARVs ended up defaulting because of this.

 He also said most public servants working in his area were complaining that their departments had forgotten about them and that they were not even considered for promotions. ENDS