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Malaria cases are on the rise despite decades of battle to decimate the deadly disease. Mosquitoes and parasites have mastered new tricks against available control technologies, including changing meal times, beef when humans pbad under mosquito nets and nocturnal workers such as crepusculars, boda boda, party animals, and night owls. guards.
When control campaigns, for example at the Coast, put babies under mosquito nets, mosquitoes quickly turned to the oldest and least protected children of school age. "Suddenly, more school-age children than infants presented themselves at the hospital with malaria," says Aisha, a health officer at Coastal General Hospital.
Apparently frustrated by these failures and the 20,000 annual deaths that accompany him, President Uhuru Kenyatta invited Cuban experts to help in March.
Although details are still being worked out, Dr. Ejersa Waqo, Head of the National Malaria Control Program, says that 10 experts in vector control of Cuba are on the way.
Initially, Cubans will be deployed in eight counties around Lake Victoria where the prevalence of malaria is highest, about 27%. "The first phase of the program will last two years and we have reserved 500 million Sh for the project," said Dr. Waqo at a malaria briefing in Nairobi.
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Cubans come to kill mosquitoes at their breeding sites using natural bacteria in a technology called larvicide.
Larvicider is not new to Kenya, having been tried in scientific studies and confirmed to be effective in western Kenya and on the coast since 2005.
The most recent trials published this month (July 2018) have shown that larviciding reduces mosquitoes by up to 65% up to six months.
The study of Kemri and Tanzanian and US colleagues was conducted in Kakamega using larvicide treatment formulations manufactured by Central Life Sciences of the United States. "We found that larviciding treatments were safe and effective," says Dr. Andrew Githeko, senior researcher at Kemri and co-author of the study.
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About 50 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets distributed from 2004 to 2015 were the foundation of the fight against malaria. Today, however, they are not as effective. "We used to pick up dead insects in the morning, but now we see them walking on the nets," says Miriam Adhiambo, from Nyando in western Kenya.
In June 2017, the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) stated that the first-line anti-malarial treatment called AL was losing its potency and advised to replace it.
In March, Dr. Yeri Kombe, director Kemri reported on their new study of the drug Ivermectin, found to kill mosquitoes when they bite humans treated.
"This can play a major role in eliminating malaria while targeting insecticide-resistant and outdoor mosquitoes," said Dr. Kombe.
Kenya could be inspired by Tanzania, which in 2013, with the technical badistance of Labiofam of Cuba, opened the $ 2.1 million Tanzania Biotech Product Limited in Kabaha for the production larvicides.
The 500 million shillings reserve for Cuban-based larviciding in Kenya is insignificant in the annual budget of 10 billion shillings for malaria, largely supplied and controlled by donors.
The largest donors of malaria in Kenya include the US government, the Global Fund, and the World Health Organization . [With support from the Africa Academy of Sciences]
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