Zimbabwe experienced an unusually high number of malaria cases this year especially during the peak of the outbreak which lasted from March to April.
World Health Organisation (WHO) national officer for malaria control programmes, Jasper Pasipamire, said this year alone Zimbabwe has recorded 361 529 malaria cases and 364 deaths. He said:
Every two minutes a child dies of malaria in the world. This year Zimbabwe has recorded 361 529 malaria cases and 364 deaths.
The cases recorded this year were from an outbreak peak which lasted from March to April 2020.
In partnership with the Ministry of Health and Child Care, we were able to reach out to affected communities and give the appropriate response to contain the outbreak.
Pasipamire said the WHO was able to capacitate local health workers to quickly respond to situations and to learn the difference between malaria cases and potential coronavirus cases.
Malaria and COVID-19 can have similar symptoms in patients and reports indicate that some patients were turned away from health centres for being potential COVID-19 cases.
The early symptoms of malaria resemble those of the novel coronavirus — including fever, chills, sweats, headache, vomiting and body aches.
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