World Malaria Day: Pakistan making progress towards achieving global targets: Dr Achakzai

Dr Baseer Achakzai, Director of Malaria in National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination has said that Pakistan is making significant progress towards achieving the global targets set for the control and elimination of Malaria.
Addressing a seminar on the occasion of World Malaria Day (WMD) here on Friday, Dr Achakzai said that we are providing free of cost medicine to 72 districts of Pakistan through 4000 microscopy centers and provides treatment also.
Directorate of Malaria Control Programme (DMC) Pakistan has celebrated World Malaria Day since 2008 at both the national and as well as provincial levels.
"Directorate of Malaria Control is planning to update national and provincial strategic plans in 2019 to align it with targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and WHO 'Global Technical Strategy'. Government of Pakistan is planning to integrate all the vector borne disease control programmes under one umbrella to achieve maximum results as the mode of spread is same," said Dr Achakzai.
The efforts against malaria control needs to be further enhanced with strong political commitment, financial resources and improved surveillance through new and improved tools. We should not lose the gains against malaria. We have to ensure that the malaria control efforts are back on track and malaria is again included in the country priority disease list. A high level national and provincial "Malaria Control and Elimination task force" needs to be established, he said.
Sharing the data, experts said that Malaria is a vector borne disease which spreads from one person to another person with the bite of a female anopheles mosquito and is highly endemic in the rural areas of Balochistan, Tribal districts, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. The biting time for malaria mosquito is mainly at night i.e. dusk to dawn. It is, therefore, necessary to use mosquito nets while sleeping in order to prevent malaria. Malaria mainly causes high grade fever with rigors and chills, nausea and vomiting, body and headaches.
Dr Achakzai said that the incidence of deadly form of falciparum malaria has been remarkably reduced over the last five years, which is a great achievement on part of malaria directorate. This was made possible with the support of partner agencies, donor organization and private sector.
The Global Fund has provided support of more than $100 million over the last five years to implement malaria elimination programme. The Global Fund grant is currently being implemented in 72 highest endemic districts and agencies of Fata, KP, Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab. The Directorate of Malaria has established more than 4000 diagnostic and treatment centers so that each suspected case is tested and confirmed case is treated with quality free of cost drugs. More than 14 million bed nets have been distributed.
"In 2018 Pakistan is successfully conducted first ever mass distribution campaign of bed nets as per best international practices. Approximately 2.5 million bed nets have been distributed amongst the rural population in 11 highest burden sharing districts of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Merged areas and Sindh benefiting around 6.2 million people," said Dr Achakzai.