Ghana makes gains in malaria control, Over 5 million malaria cases recorded in 2020

Dr Keziah Malm, the Programme Manager, National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), has revealed that although Ghana has made great achievements over the past years in its malaria mortality targets, infection rates remain high.

Dr Malm was addressing the 2021 World Malaria Day press briefing in Accra to highlight the status of the malaria control programme implementation and also give journalists opportunity to interact to gain better understanding of the strategies, activities and statistics of malaria control in the country.

She said the disease continued to be of great public health importance to Ghana, saying: “We have interventions, which have proven to work, but it is not being implemented at optimum levels due to inadequate resources.”

Malaria elimination in Ghana is predicted to cost 961 million dollars between 2020 and 2029, and uptake of effective interventions was estimated to prevent 85.5 million cases, save 4,468 lives, and avert 2.2 billion dollars in health system expenditure.

She said Ghana was on track to making impact and move into elimination with effective collaboration of all stakeholders including public and private sectors, and personal commitments towards the “Zero Malaria Starts with Me, Let’s Draw the Line,” campaign because it affected everyone.

According Dr Malm, malaria mortality had reduced drastically because in 2012, eight people died every day from malaria, but that had been reduced to one person dying from the disease every day in 2020.

She said millions of people in the country had been reached with effective life-saving tools such as long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs), seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) and indoor residual spraying (IRS).

Dr Malm, however, said sustaining the gains made required extra efforts from everyone. For instance, she said, funding threatened to slow down progress, particularly across Africa, where high-burden countries were facing critical funding gaps.

Therefore, the programme manager said, unless countries found innovative ways to mobilise adequate resources to bridge the funding gap, get the resources and technical support they needed to implement malaria control plans, including the effective utilisation of available resources, malaria resurgence would likely take many more lives.

Ghana’s National Strategic Plan (NSP) estimates a 90 per cent reduction in malaria mortality and a 50 per cent reduction in case count by 2025, using 2019 as a baseline.

Through the implementation of a mix of interventions, the country has positioned at least six districts to achieve pre-elimination by 2025. Consequently, Dr Malm said sustained funding was required to fully implement the interventions to achieve the 2025 NSP targets towards the global elimination of the disease by the 2030 target.

Additionally, she said, that increased investment and commitment from the government and the private sector was critical to revitalise progress against malaria.

Managing Director of Ecobank Ghana Daniel Sackey has announced that the African banking conglomerate is set to launch a Zero Malaria Business Leaders Initiative (ZMBLI) in the country. Mr Sackey explained that the initiative which will make Ghana the fourth in Africa is to fully mobilise the private sector to support the effort to eliminate malaria.

He acknowledged that eliminating the deadly illness will increase prosperity in Africa in the long term since it costs the continent about $12 billion annually, thus, the need to prioritise such an action.

“Ecobank is an institution that is keen on impacting positively on the health of people living in communities in which they operate. We are, therefore, delighted to announce our plans to launch Zero Malaria Business Leaders Initiative.

“The initiative aims to promote the mobilization of resources from the private sector in order to sustainably finace the fight against malaria and leverage the skills and influence of private sector leaders,” he stated.

Ghana is still recording high numbers of malaria cases at the OPD’s despite gains made in the fight against the virus. Last year alone over five million cases were recorded nationwide, with 308 deaths.