“Free Malaria Treatment and Prevention in Cote d’Ivoire: A Roadmap to Zero Cases by 2025”

Despite the progress made, malaria remains a public health problem in our country. This justifies the continued intensification and scaling up of high-impact interventions in order to maintain the achievements and move towards the pre-elimination of malaria by 2025” such is the situation of malaria in Côte d’Ivoire , according to the coordinating director of the National Malaria Control Program (PNLP), Dr. Tano Méa Antoine. Who hosted a press conference last Wednesday at his headquarters on the Riviera, as a prelude to World Malaria Day which will take place on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. The director took the opportunity to emphasize an important aspect of the fight, that of treatment which is free in Côte d’Ivoire, depending on the patient’s condition. “The drugs are free. We give them away for free. I insist on this, write that the medicine is free. The diagnosis is free. Whoever makes you pay has robbed you. I specify that it is in public hospitals and not in private. I insist on that. Severe malaria is also free for children and pregnant women. Simple malaria is free for everyone. Help us with this, press men. The Ministry of Health says, treatment for uncomplicated malaria is free, diagnosis for uncomplicated malaria is free, severe malaria is free for children under 5 and pregnant women. But, I did not say that the consultation is free. Let’s not mix it up” insisted Dr Tano Méa. He reassured that malaria is a preventable disease, if one follows the instructions given. “Avoiding malaria is a personal decision. This decision consists in adopting new behaviors. Malaria can be avoided. If we make our environment clean, there won’t be any mosquitoes, if we have a fever, we’ll be treated early, we won’t have severe malaria, if our child is sick or our wife is pregnant, we’ll sends them to the hospital, there won’t be severe malaria. We have to decide not to get malaria. Malaria is a preventable disease. If you make your environment clean, you sleep under mosquito nets, you won’t get malaria,” insisted the coordinating director. “In Côte d’Ivoire, the festivities will take place in Grand-Morié, in the Health District of Agboville, on the theme “It is time to reach zero cases of malaria: invest, innovate and implement”. »

JB KOUADIO