Mozambique: Malaria deaths drop to 210, but cases rise to 7.2M in H1 – official

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Mozambique: Malaria deaths drop to 210, but cases rise to 7.2M in H1 – official

8:59 CAT | 22 Aug 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: O Pais]

Mozambique recorded 210 deaths due to malaria in the first half of this year, a quarter less than in the same period in 2022, at a time when the country is preparing for vaccination against the disease, an official source announced on Monday.

“We recorded around 210 deaths compared to 280 in the same period last year,” said Baltazar Candrinho, director of Mozambique’s National Malaria Programme.

According to Candrinho, between January and June Mozambique also saw an increase in the number of malaria cases, with 7.2 million cases compared to 6.8 million in 2022.

The increase in cases in Mozambique is associated with the lack of means of preventing the disease, as well as the natural disasters that cyclically affect the country “favouring the growth of the mosquito population”, said Candrinho.

Mozambique is one of the candidates to receive the malaria vaccine and is currently “dependent on the decision of the WHO [World Health Organisation] to start vaccination”, said Pedro Aide, scientific director of the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM) in Mozambique.

“Now it’s just a question of when this process can start here in Mozambique and as far as we know this depends a little on the availability of vaccines,” said Pedro Aide.

On 14 July, after a meeting with Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi, WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus admitted the possibility of including Mozambique in the Malaria Vaccine Initiative as early as the first quarter of 2024.

In July, the WHO, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced that the malaria vaccine would be distributed for the first time to 12 African countries over the next two years.

Malaria is one of the deadliest diseases in Africa, killing almost half a million children under the age of 5 every year, and accounts for approximately 95 per cent of the world’s malaria cases and 96 per cent of deaths in 2021.

Source: Lusa