Malaria cases decreasing, says MEC
Responses in Mpumalanga bearing fruit
Mpumalanga department of health MEC, Gillion Mashego, told Sowetan yesterday that two patients died in Bushbuckridge’s Tintswalo Hospital in the past two weeks, and they are suspected to have died from malaria.
“The deaths occurred at the Tintswalo hospital, which registered the highest number of malaria cases (36) between April and May in the Bushbuckridge area.
“During the month of April and May 2017, a total of 585 malaria cases have been reported in the whole Mpumalanga province.
“This is higher than the reported number of cases reported last year which stood at 499 during the same period,” said Mashego.
In Limpopo, at least 600 malaria infections have been reported, but the provincial government has downplayed fears of an outbreak.
Mashego said about 294 of the malaria cases have been reported in the Bushbuckridge area. He said the health department in Mpumalanga has activated response teams to assess the situation and conduct investigations.
The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) said the number of patients contracting malaria in Limpopo has been decreasing “drastically” in the past few days, due to effective measures put in place.
The institute’s director, Lucille Blumberg, said there was a “significant” increase in cases of malaria cases in the Vhembe and Mopani regions of the province since April.
She said other cases were detected in the areas of Bushbuckrige, where vigorous campaigns were launched to deal with the disease.
Blumberg confirmed that they had attended to over 600 malaria patients from Limpopo. She also said there was no reason to declare an outbreak. “We are satisfied with the manner in which the province has been able to deal with malaria cases so far,” she said yesterday.
According to Blumberg, the supply of treatment was stabilising, the number of new patients was going down, and people that had developed fever were able to get treatment.