The Presidential Malaria Initiative (PMI) has plans to conduct a therapeutic efficacy Study in Busia County.
The exercise which targets 200 participants from Port Victoria Hospital in Bunyala Sub County aims at determining whether the first- and second-line anti-malarial drugs are effective in managing the disease.
Speaking during a courtesy call at the County health offices, the PMI Head of Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit, Division of National Malaria Program, Dr Elvis Oyugi said that Busia County has a high Malaria burden.
“Busia is endemic of malaria with the highest prevalence of 39% according to the latest Kenya Malaria Indicator survey,” he said.
The Chief of Party PMI impact Malaria, Dr Dickson Mwakangalu, said that his team is ready to undertake the exercise and the laboratory personnel have also been trained since the study has a lot of technicalities.
“We looked at the data and it was pointing out that Port Victoria Hospital had quite a huge burden of malaria. We analyzed the caseloads and discovered the month of November and December 2021 had about 100 cases per month,’ he said.
Mwakangalu disclosed that the PMI amended the protocols to ensure that children up to the age of 10 years are involved in the study.
Busia County Chief Officer for Public Health, Jonathan Ino, said that there is need for concerted efforts to reverse the malaria prevalence rates in the County and the research will go along way towards this end.
By Salome Alwanda
