Today is World Malaria Day. From 2021, according to Drs. doctor Dayanand Panchoe zero recorded local cases. If Suriname maintains this until 2024, the country will be certified by the WHO. In 2023, our country was the first in the Amazon region to be declared one of the Malaria champions by Paho. of the region.
At the beginning of the 2000s, Suriname was confronted with numbers of registered cases of around thirteen thousand to fourteen thousand malaria infections per year. Many then succumbed. We now have zero locally recorded cases.
The current state has been achieved by establishing the Malaria Elimination Task Force, a team of seven experts with knowledge and expertise in various areas relevant to malaria control. The Global Fund, the Pan-American Health Organization (Paho) and the Surinamese government have financed the action plan.
Malaria Service Deliverers have proven to be very effective, especially in remote gold mines. They were present on the goldfields with malaria diagnosis and treatment, helping to combat the spread of the disease. Providing impregnated mosquito nets, information campaigns, Active Case Detection (ACD) – screening everyone in an area where one or more cases of malaria have been diagnosed – and Mass Drug Treatment (MDT); mass treatment with antimalarials were also very effective.
“Our strategy was focused on quickly available diagnostics and treatment of malaria cases with the right medication to reduce the parasite reservoirs to zero,” said Dr. D. Panchoe. Drs. Dayanand Panchoe is a physician-parasitologist, head of the Malaria Diagnostics and Policies unit of the BOG and a member of the Malaria Elimination Task Force for more than twenty years. The doctor believes that we should remain vigilant. The Bureau of Public Health (BOG) and TropClinic (located in Paramaribo-Noord) guarantee free malaria diagnosis and treatment. Travelers in particular must remain alert.
The import cases still posed a major challenge. There are regular cases of imports from neighboring countries. Testing sites at the border posts should prevent this.
Source: de Ware Tijd
