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The national government will increase its budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Health to prevent the spread of malaria, Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakumincha said yesterday.

Nakhumicha at the same assured Kenyans that President William Ruto’s government has put in place adequate measures to ensure the country reduces malaria fatalities drastically.

 She said that currently, malaria prevalence in the country stands at six per cent with the national government in collaboration with the county governments targeting to reduce the rate to at least one per cent.

Speaking during the World Malaria Day celebrations at Ekerenyo playground in Nyamira county yesterday, Nakumincha said that the national government has given out mosquito nets worth Sh16 million towards the fight against malaria.

The CS also announced that the national government would train and empower health community promoters in every county as one way of fighting malaria right from the village level.

“The national government has realised the great roles the community health promoters are playing in the villages and that is why the national government wants to train and empower them in dealing with health matters and challenges at the grassroots level at the cost of Sh5,000,” she added.

Health promoters

“We are going to employ community health promoters in every county where we are projecting that in every one hundred households, there should be one community health promoter,” she added.

The CS also challenged the county governments to allocate more funds to health departments warning that a county without healthy people cannot develop.

She thanked development partners in the health sector among them the World Health Organisation (WHO), Amref and USAID for their contributions in the campaign to eradicate malaria in the country.

The CS noted that pregnant mothers were the hardest hit by Malaria as well as children under five years and that was why the national government was giving free mosquito nets to the two endangered groups.

“I want to tell governor Amos Nyaribo that he cannot manage to develop the county unless his people are healthy,’ she added.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in the country Dr Abdourahmane Diallo said that there are 247 million malaria cases in the world with 234 million cases being recorded in Africa, representing 95 percent.

Low birth weight

He further said that out of 40 million pregnancies, 13.3 million representing 32 percent were exposed to malaria infection during pregnancy which increases the risk of low birth weight.

Dr Diallo said that there were 619,000 global malaria deaths and 593,000 of those deaths were in Africa representing 95 percent.

Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu who was the chief guest challenged the county governments to make sure that they have enough drugs and personnel in their health institutions.

Machogu said that president William Ruto’s government was serious about the health of Kenyans and that was why it was patterning with county governments in equipping their institutions health with equipment which they don’t have.

Machogu said that malaria was preventable and challenged Kenyans to take preventive measures in a bid to eradicate malaria.