The Kenyan Ministry of Health will soon be using drones to spray mosquito breeding sites.
In an attempt to fight Malaria the Ministry of Health has partnered with SC Johnson, the East African Community and society for Family health to use drones to spray mosquito breeding sites around the Lake Basin in Western Kenya.
Although there are netizens who argued that the plan would not work because the drones wouldn’t be enough to spray the area. However, during the launch on Friday Cabinet Secretary Mutahu Kagwe said that this was a move in the right direction as it would help get rid of mosquitoes.
He said:
“I am happy to note that our recently constituted End Malaria Council, working with the private sector has plans to deploy drones to spray mosquito breeding sites,”
The fight against Malaria has been a long one and in this day and age, millions of Kenyans still die from the fatal disease. Since mosquito nets, coils and sprays haven’t been enough in this fight CS Kagwe stated that the ministry has had to take a few lessons from other countries and how they’ve death with Malaria.
The chairman of the End Malaria Council Chris Gitonga said the private sector will work together with the government to holistically fight malaria.
Gitonga said.
“Prevention is better than cure if we are able to go to the source, using larvacides and we already have some that have been tested, and using drones instead of a person going around spraying, a drone can spray between 100 to 150 acres per day,”
When will it start?
The project is meant to kick off in the western and former Nyanza region and will soon start when the larvacides approve it.
You must be wondering how it’ll work but the plan is to target borders that have a lot of population movement which will also secure the East African partner states.
Other plans the government has.
Drone technology will not be enough without extra measures which is why the government will be donating free mosquito nets in affected areas.
The President’s advisor Dr Willis Akhwale who is the President’s advisor from the African Leaders Malaria Alliance will donate 15 million mosquito nets in Bungoma and Kakamega.
The malaria vaccine.
So far, 250,000 children have received the first-ever malaria vaccine with most receiving three doses and currently waiting for the fourth dose.
Dr Akhwale said counties have a dashboard to monitor the prevalence rate of malaria to acquire statistics of how well the strategies are working. Nandi County has had a spike in malaria cases but a team has been deployed on the ground to work on the same.