Ethiopian Informer
ADDIS ABABA: October 1 (EI) – The Ethiopian government on Tuesday launched a national campaign that aimed to eradicate malaria disease from the East African country by the year 2030.
The newly unveiled national campaign, dubbed “Zero Malaria Starts with Me,” was launched on Tuesday by the Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen.
According to the Ethiopian Minister of Health, Amir Aman, the anti-malaria national campaign would see the East African country free from malaria disease by the year 2030.
“For the past five years, with a collective effort Ethiopia managed to decrease malaria morbidity and mortality by 50 percent and 60 percent respectively,” Amir said.
Figures from MoH show that despite recent collective efforts to decrease malaria disease in Ethiopia, “each second 2 people get infected with malaria” across the country.
The health minister, who emphasized the need to exert concerted efforts in the fight against malaria, also stressed that “it is crucial to revitalizing our commitment to achieve Ethiopia’s plan of making 239 Woredas (districts) malaria-free by 2022, and the whole country free of malaria by the year 2030.”
Zero Malaria Starts with Me is a continent-wide campaign to eliminate malaria from Africa. The campaign is expected to spark grassroots movements, in which all stakeholders including political leaders, the private sector, communities, and other members of the society commit to the fight against malaria.
The campaign, which was initially launched in Senegal back in 2014, was also officially endorsed at the African Union (AU) Summit by African leaders in July last year.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO)’s latest World malaria report, “no significant gains were made in reducing malaria cases in the period 2015 to 2017. The estimated number of malaria deaths in 2017, at 435 000, remained virtually unchanged over the previous year.”
The African continent “continues to shoulder more than 90 percent of the global malaria burden,” in which in the 10 African countries hardest hit by malaria, there were an estimated 3.5 million more cases of the disease in 2017 over the previous year, according to WHO.
