Lack of funds weakening malaria campaign - NGO

Madam Gladys Tetteh Yeboah, Programmes Manager, Hope for Future Generation, a non-governmental organisation has noted that financial constraints are threatening malaria campaign in Africa.

She said though research has shown that the disease is preventable and curable, some 2.6 billion dollar annual funding gap since 2011 is weakening efforts at stopping the disease.

Madam Yeboah was speaking at a stakeholder meeting for malaria advocacy project to increase resources towards stopping malaria in Ghana.

The project dubbed: “Advocacy for Resources for Malaria Stoppage,” (ARMS) initiative in Ghana has funding from the DFID.

Madam Yeboah said the country could no longer depend on foreign donor support and called for local fundraising activities to help train community malaria ambassadors for the campaign.

She called for increase in diagnosis of reported malaria cases before treatment to reduce the large number of people who are directly treated for malaria without testing and to also reduce the amount of funds pushed into treatment of suspected cases.

Mr Roland Glover, Volta Regional Malaria Focal Person, said the focus on testing of reported malaria cases before treatment has seen a decline in malaria cases for the first half of this year as compared to previous years.

He said the good news however is that, there has been a decline in malaria related deaths in children under five as well as pregnant women as compared to last year.

The ARMS project has a one-year life span in 10 communities in four regions of the country with the aim of reducing the incidence of malaria in Ghana through testing prior to treatment.