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Zanzibar stakeholders call for increased collaboration with PSI
RESIDENTS of Dar es Salaam, Coast and Tanga regions can now smile all the way to their bedrooms, thanks to a campaign on free distribution of long lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets (LLIn) to each household due to start in February.Registration for available sleeping spaces in each household is already underway as residents brace for the treasured malaria prevention gadgets.
PSI is taking the lead to mobilize communities for the coming campaign through a set of complementing communication channels and most importantly in communicating the benefits of the campaign to area residents.
The campaign aims at having all residents in the three regions whose malaria prevalence stand at 20.8% for Coast, 13.9% for Tanga and 1.2% in Dar es Salaam regions sleeping under treated nets consistently all year around Branded Universal Coverage (UCC), this nationwide campaign is being implemented in phases at zonal level.
Already residents of Mtwara, Lindi and Ruvuma, Mbeya, Iringa, Rukwa, Dodoma, Morogoro and Singida regions have benefitted from this drive which ultimately aims to have all Tanzanian sleep under treated nets by 2012.
Registration in the three coastal zone regions, according to PSI/Tanzania Malaria Program Manager David Dadi, started during the last week of January (24th -28th) lasting five days.
“In this campaign we have well trained people on the ground who will go around every house and ask some specific questions aimed at knowing the number of sleeping spaces in each house so as to establish those with treated nets and those without,” Dadi said.
The program manager noted that heads of each household will be the respondents during those interviews that will lead to issuance of a special coupon that will be used to collect the number of nets eligible for sleeping spaces in their households.
Dadi said: “The coupon given to household heads during the registration exercise should be kept and produced at the distribution/issuing points set to be announced shortly after registration.”
The free treated mosquito nets distribution campaign is a deliberate effort by the government in collaborations with donors and NGOs to curb malaria, which is a number one single killer disease that claims over 100,000 people’s lives annually, mostly infants aged below five years.