HEALTH-ZAMBIA: Fishermen Threaten Anti-malaria Programme

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Charles Mubambe

LUSAKA, Oct 30 2002 (IPS) - Zambia’s campaign against malaria, using treated mosquito nets, is being threatened by fishermen who use lifesaving gauze to catch fish in major rivers and lakes.

The practice is more prevalent in Zambia’s northeast Luapula province, the backbone of the country’s fishing industry. Fishermen have for decades plied the waters of Lake Mweru, Lake Bangweulu and Lake Tanganyika in northern Province in search of fish, which are sold in cities like Ndola and Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.

Zambia is among African countries most affected by malaria, with an annual mortality rate of more than 40,000 children under the age of five. Malaria accounts for 32 percent of all hospital admissions and up to 36 percent of outpatient care in health centres countrywide, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

At least 300 million people worldwide suffer from acute malaria each year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Nine out of 10 cases occur in Africa south of the Sahara.

Zambian health authorities attribute the large number of deaths arising from malaria not only to the absence of appropriate diagnosis and treatment but also to ignorance and improper attitudes in the affected regions.

The anti-malaria drive in Luapula is an integrated, community-based approach which aims at selling nets and insecticide in districts grappling with the tasks of controlling the spread of malaria and curbing over fishing.

Last year, the ministry of health phased out the use of chloroquine – the cheapest anti-malarial drug – after patients had developed resistance to it. The ministry and the private sector have been encouraging residents to get mosquito nets as a better alternative.

Normally, at this time of the year, mosquito nets are in low demand but Rosalia Chishimba, a trader at Senama market in Mansa, the main town in Luapula, says she was surprised to see an influx of customers looking for nets recently. A net fetches between 3 U.S. dollars and 5 U.S. dollars and insecticides 0.50 U.S. cents.

Some fishermen buy the nets – often several of them – and stitch them together to make a wider net whose tiny mesh scoops even the smallest fish and spawn. Environmentalists say the nets, treated with chemicals, which kill mosquitoes upon contact, are contaminating rivers and lakes.

Before the programme, net coverage was less than 10 percent; there was no use of treated nets and nets available from the private sector – the only source – were limited and expensive. Since 1995, UNICEF’s programme has sold sufficient nets to cover 60 percent of the community living in the target area.

A recent research shows that a third of the population reported sleeping under a net the previous night, over 80 percent reported re-treating their nets at least once, and net use is found to be mainly confined among pregnant women and children under the age of five. The incidence of malaria was also significantly lower in net users compared with non-net users.

Fisheries authorities in Mansa are equally worried that the use of the illegal net – if not checked – could wipe out fish stocks and other aquatic life in the province’s water. In Luapula, malaria is endemic all year round.

”The people in this area have survived on fishing for centuries and care little for a mosquito bite,” says a fisheries official in Mansa. ”One would have a net cast over the lake overnight to earn an income. They endure mosquito bites and have elected to live with it.”

Evans Chibiliti, a top official in Luapula, told the ‘Zambia Daily Mail’ recently that government had discovered worrying levels of over-fishing in all the lakes and rivers, which threaten the economic backbone of the province.

”The amount of over-fishing is incredible,” he said, blaming the unorthodox methods of fishing in the region infested with malaria.

Malaria presents a major risk to pregnant women, who may suffer anaemia, premature delivery and low birth-weight, according to the ministry of health.

The climatic conditions in Zambia also offer a condusive breeding ground for malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, which have over the years become hard to control because they have developed a resistance to insecticides.

Malaria is a major disease in Africa and a primary cause of poverty.

”Every day 5,000 children die from malaria. Every year there are more than 1 billion clinical cases among children and adults worldwide. Scientific challenges and opportunities in the control of malaria are ever changing, from changes due to global warming-encouraging malaria vectors to flourish to the development of world-wide parasite resistance to anti-malaria drugs,” says Gerald Keusch of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM).

MIM will hold its 3rd Pan-African Conference on Malaria in the northern Tanzanian resort town of Arusha in November.

If malaria had been eliminated 35 years ago, Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) today would be up to 32 percent greater, according to estimates from a recent Harvard study.

Studies say the wider use of insecticide-treated bednets may reduce episodes of illness by 50 percent in areas of high transmission.

Insecticide-treated mosquito nets, if used properly, are one of the best ways to prevent mosquitoes from biting and infecting individuals with malaria. Their use is also being vigorously promoted by the UN-backed ‘Roll Back Malaria’ initiative, with special emphasis on young children and pregnant women.

Malaria, a tropical disease, is transmitted by the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito.