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By ZamChro Correspondent

Health Minister Kapembwa Simbao has said Zambia is advancing towards the malaria-free status after reducing the prevalence rate to an average of 35 cases in every 1,000 people.   

Mr Simbao said in Lusaka on Tuesday that the rate of death emanating from the disease had been reduced by 66 per cent as per World Health Organisation (WHO) findings and that was partly attributable to the use of coartem.  

He said this during a Press briefing on the use of coartem as first-line treatment of malaria attended by journalists, some from Europe, who are in the country under the sponsorship of Novartis Malaria Initiative, the manufacturers of coartem.

He said although international records showed that Zambia had not yet attained the disease elimination stage, in had been in actual fact achieved and soon the country would be able to reach the disease-free scenario.   

Mr Simbao said Zambia recorded success through the multifaceted approach which included the provision of more than five million treated anti-mosquito nets, the indoor residual spraying and the use of coartem following the high failure rate of chloroquine.

Malaria is a tropical disease caused by parasites of the plasmodium species and is transmitted from person to person through the bites of an infected female anopheles mosquito.

The symptoms include fever, headaches and other flu-like signs and if not treated, the disease in its most severe form leads to a coma or death.

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