Lubango — Lubango health authorities have diagnosed more than 1,000 cases of malaria a week, since the second fortnight of February, when the disease reached its peak, a situation that worries the municipal health department, ANGOP has learnt.
In the last few days alone, the municipal health department registered 1,503 cases of the disease, numbers that are likely to remain “high” until the first week of April, when the malaria peak ends and the rains stop, the authorities said.
The increase in malaria cases is associated with climatic factors and the level of water in the rivers, with rain contributing to changes in vector consistency, providing the aquatic environment for the mosquito life cycle, increasing humidity conditions and the longevity of the vectors.
In normal times, the number of cases is around 100 to 150 per week and the age at which it is most prevalent ranges from 15 to 49 years old, according to the municipal health director in Lubango, Anita Catihe.
The health official said the Commune of Hoque is the epicenter, which is why awareness-raising and testing services have been stepped up, with a health fair set up there.
“We’re having cases that put us on alert, because people with malaria are arriving at the centers, posts and hospitals very late, already with severe anemia, which is very worrying,” she said.
Lubango has a health network of 52 units, including 28 health posts, 22 health centres and two municipal hospitals, one of which is a missionary hospital of the Catholic Church, located in Toco, and the other “Olga Chaves”, on the outskirts of the city.
The municipality of Lubango has an estimated population of 1.5 million inhabitants and has five communes, namely the headquarters, Huíla, Arimba, Hoque and Quilemba.
Transmitted to humans through the bite of certain types of mosquito, malaria kills more than 600,000 people every year, 95% of them in Africa, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).
In Africa, more than 80 percent of deaths are of children under the age of five. MS/MS/TED/AMP