With rain season approaching health practitioners in Maun have warned the p[ub;lic of high risk of contracting malaria.
Speaking at a stakeholder’s meeting in Maun on Friday, Head of Preventive Services at Ngamiland District Health Management Team (DHMT) Goitsemang Mothibi noted that there had been numerous imported cases of the deadly disease outside Botswana.
He noted that people from Ngamiland have been making frequent visits to Kasumbalesa which boarders Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo where it is there is a lucrative market for dried fish.
Out of the ninety (90) recorded cases so far, she said eight people were admitted to hospital and that one succumbed to death.
And with a district population of 98871, she said they encounter problems at times when it comes to doing outreaches as some areas are not accessible by road.
As it stands she said the district has a total of eighteen stretched villages with only one hospital, twelve clinics, seventeen health posts, ninety two mobile stops, thirty two of which are accessed by air and sixty by road.
For his part, DHMT head Dr Maxwell Mungisi stated that the government of Botswana through the Ministry of Health is aiming at achieving an elimination exercise by year 2018.
He said that they have put up strategies to accomplish this in partnership with all stakeholders concerned.
“We are aware that this region is the hottest compared to others in the country, and so we are duty bound to see to it that we deal with malaria cases as they come.”
He said to achieve this communities in this area will need to give best level of cooperation.
He said failure to do that will mean authorities not being able to achieve set targets.
He said the transmission period is from October to June, adding that they want to target the parasite that transmits the disease so that they may be able to control it. He stated that as health care providers they want to ready themselves for the elimination exercise as malaria has proven to be a public health problem, though noticeable and preventable.
