Health

Malaria still an epidemic in Burundi

Dionise Nizigiyimana, Director of PNILP

Dionise Nizigiyimana, Director of PNILP

The situation of malaria still calls for more control actions a month after the disease was declared an epidemic on 13 March by the Ministry of public Health.

Dionise Nizigiyimana, the Director of the National Integrated Programme for the Fight against Malaria (PNILP) says “though, nationally, its registered cases tend downwards, malaria is still an epidemic on the 15th week of 2017”.
He says that 2,745,417 cases of malaria have been registered by the 15th week of 2017.

Critical situation is mainly faced by northern, eastern and southern regions of Burundi that are still beyond the epidemic threshold.

In some of the provinces of the regions such as Kirundo, Cankuzo and Karuzi, the prevalence rate is beyond 100 per cent.

Nizigiyimana says, the cases of malaria have remarkably diminished in the province of Ngozi where piloting study of the efficiency of indoor residual spraying was carried out in two health districts.

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