10 September 2015 - Medicines Sans Frontier (MSF), UNICEF and Mentor Initiative began an eight-day campaign against malaria at the UNMISS protection-of-civilians (PoC) site in Bentiu, Unity State, today.
During the exercise, which will target an estimated 35, 000 children under five years, staff and volunteers moved from house to house, screening all children in the age bracket.
“We assess if children in the families show symptoms of malaria like fever, so that they can be treated or referred for further medical attention,” said Trsedeye Girma, UNICEF emergency specialist.
Ms. Girma said the positivity of malaria was over 80 per cent, with children under five making up the largest affected group, according to recent tests of all children who sought medical care at their fixed and mobile facilities.
Lynsey Davies, a doctor with MSF-Holland, said with such a huge outbreak and high positivity rate, they needed nothing other than just assessing fever.
“We just take a history of fever as well as current fever,” Ms. Davies said. “And if a child hasn’t been treated in the last two weeks, we go ahead and treat.”
Urging parents and caregivers to give their children a chance to be screened for malaria, Ms. Girma said the campaign, intended to last only eight days, could be extended based on the results.
Dr. Davies also advised parents to seek early medical attention for their children if malarial drugs were to respond better and quickly.
In addition to treatment, Mentor Initiative was carrying out disease-control programmes by spraying inside shelters.
Owen Bickuell, working with Mentor Initiative, said the chemicals applied would last for about 46 months to kill any roaming mosquitoes in shelters.
Muhammad Kamal, a Mentor Initiative staff member, said, however, that once houses had been sprayed, they must not be re-plastered or washed to maintain the chemicals for the required duration.
He added that the prevention campaign would also spray any stagnant water in the PoC site to kill mosquito larvae at their early stages.
Mentor Initiative had also distributed approximately 50, 177 insecticide-treated mosquito nets to the already registered 123, 363 persons, he said. He added the distribution would target all 138,428 individuals currently living at the PoC sites.
“To prevent the spread of malaria, everybody must sleep under a mosquito net,” Mr. Bickuell said. “Before sleeping, tuck it properly under your bed to prevent any entry mosquitoes might find.”
He said the joint intervention would see the malaria caseload decrease in the next two weeks.