By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
Larvae source management has been identified as a crucial strategy that the National Malaria Elimination Programme, NMEP could prioritize to achieve the new national ambitious target to completely git rid of malaria in Ghana within the next few years.
However, health officials in the Ejisu Municipality of Ashanti have observed that, the real positive impact of the larvae source control as an intervention could be realized only with a new implementation strategy of this intervention, than it is current situation.
Ejisu is one of 21 districts in Ashanti where the larvae source control is being implemented by Zoomlion Ghana Limited in partnership with the Ministry of Health.
Having accepted that Ghana is one of the malaria endemic countries in the world, government and its development partners, over the years have adopted and are implementing multi-prong strategies towards controlling and now, eliminating the disease from the country.
Malaria, as a high public health burden, is transmitted through the bite of an infected female anopheles mosquito, which if not treated early, could lead to various health complications with the ultimate being death, which has children under five years and pregnant women as the most vulnerable.
Research has established that stagnant waters remains one of the most conducive breeding sources of the malaria transmitting mosquitoes.
This is what informed the adoption of the larvae source management or larviciding, as one of the key interventions being deployed by the National Malaria Elimination Programme, NMEP, the vehicle through which government is fighting the disease in the country.
Zoomlion Company Limited, a private company, providing free technical services and human resources, is partnering with the Ministry of Health in implementing this intervention.
The General Manager of Vector Control Services at Zoomlion, Reverend Dr. Ebenezer Addai, explained that the larvae source control involves the deployment of people resources with a biological reagent sprayed at breeding sources for mosquitoes.
“Laviciding is a system of controlling lavae with a special microbial reagent. It is not chemical, it is a food. Reagent that is given to lavae in stagnant waters and it kills them instantly”, he explained further.
According to him, this intervention has been ongoing since 2009 in selected districts across the country with 21 in the Ashanti region including the Ejisu Municipality.
In the view of Rev. Dr. Addai, this intervention, has proven to be highly effective in controlling the mosquitoes to impact positively on the cases of confirmed malaria in the beneficiary districts.
“We have monitors such as district health directors, Malaria Focal Persons and others. This programme has contributed significantly to reducing malaria in the districts in which it is being done”, he noted.
In a follow up to this claim by the General Manager for Vector Control Services of Zoomlion company limited, GBCNews followed up to find out more about the claim in the Ejisu Municipality
The Municipal Focal Person on Malaria, Nana Adjei Bobi, who is an integral member of the larvae control management team, noted that verily, with a more effective implementation, this intervention holds the key to subduing transmission of the malaria causing parasite since it is a biological reagent that directly attacks the larvae to stop them from developing into the dangerous female anopheles mosquito.
However, the Municipal Malaria Focal Person using his jurisdiction as a case in point, said even though there was a modest reduction in the positive recorded cases of the disease in the municipality since 2021, the contribution of the intervention is very minimal hence the strategy of its implementation needs modification to become more impactful than it is currently.
“They ar not doing it regularly. They do it for a few days and stop. They way they are doing it now, I don’t see any impact”, the Municipal Malaria Focal Person asserted.
According to Nana Adjei Bobi, though the municipality has seen some level of decline in positive cases of malaria, the disease remains as the leading cause of morbidity in the area and called for concerted effort by all stakeholders and also attitudinal and behavioural change among the people so as to propel the new agenda of the government, which is to eliminate malaria from Ghana in the medium term.
Nana Adjei Bobi is convinced that elimination of malaria from Ghana is possible and urged all to get involved in the pursuit of strategies to realize this dream.
