DRC: the malaria epidemic progressed in 2020 because of the Covid-19
Photo dated September 19, 2010 shows two children, in the village of Walikale in DRC, suffering from malaria.
AP - Schalk van Zuydam
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Like every year, the WHO publishes, this Monday, November 30, its report on the evolution of the malaria pandemic in the world.
And if some progress is observed, the pace is far from sufficient to overcome the disease by 2030, as is the goal.
In addition to the usual difficulties, such as the chronic lack of funding, the Covid-19 was added this year, which disrupted the programs.
This was particularly the case in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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With nearly 22,000 cases in 2019, the malaria epidemic continues to grow in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Of course, it kills less, and care is improving.
But nearly 10,000 children under 5 died from it.
They alone constitute three-quarters of the victims.
► To read also: Malaria and Covid-19: the great unknown
Mainly the cause: difficulties in delivering impregnated mosquito nets, the mainstay of prevention campaigns.
Their delivery to households has been even more complicated this year,
because of the Covid-19
.
Joris Losimba Likwela is in charge of a distribution program for the NGO SANRU Asbl.
“
In 2020, 59 million inhabitants were waiting to receive their mosquito net.
From one day to the next, it had become complicated to move forward.
We had to completely review the campaign organization strategy, to move from distributions at fixed sites to door-to-door distributions, in order to avoid the crowds that could be vectors of transmission of Covid-19.
This slows down the process which started again around September-October for households who were waiting for their mosquito net,
”he explains.
This delay in transport should be caught up during the first quarter of 2021. But it raises fears of excess mortality next year.
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