ENSURING accurate data collection for malaria and eradicating bad data collection practices that lead to insufficient action remains critical, Malaria Partners Zambia Programs Manager Eric Liswaniso has said.
According to the 2021 estimate report on malaria, Zambia recorded over 6.3 million cases of malaria with 1,480 malaria deaths recorded in the same year.
Speaking to The Scoop, Mr. Liswaniso said that data management remained important in the malaria fight.
He affirmed the organization’s commitment towards supporting data management services and building capacity of community health workers and ensuring collaborations.
“On the project we are running we support data service management services, we value data because it is key to malaria elimination. We track the performance of community health workers through data and I can assure that as an organization we have invested heavily in data management services as it helps to tailor services,” Mr. Liswaniso said.
On 5th-6th December 2023 Faith Leader for Malaria Elimination (FlAME) in partnership with the Government and the End Malaria council, a consortium of public and private leaders held a round table meeting under the theme “harness, innovate and act to save lives time to end malaria is now.”
And End Malaria Council Chairperson Godwin Beene appealed to major Stakeholders in the fight against malaria and ordinary citizens not to relent in the fight against the scourge, as Zambia remained highly burdened with the pandemic.
Dr. Beene said that despite past efforts in eliminating the malaria pandemic, malaria infections continued to be a toll on the country’s workforce thereby limiting productivity.
He said that citizens should not relax and think that they cannot contract malaria but should ensure that all preventable strategies are taken into consideration.
“Time to end malaria is now. stakeholders should not tire in this fight, citizens should not think they cannot contract malaria, Zambia is still highly burdened and that is why as a country we should continue talking about this pandemic and motivate others to join in the fight.,” Dr. Beene said.