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A mosquito on a person’s skin.
The Mpumalanga Department of Health is urging residents to remain cautious amid a sharp rise in confirmed malaria cases in the province. The department registered more than 300 cases last month.
Director for Communicable Diseases Mandla Zwane attributes the increase in malaria to the recent floods in the province.
Zwane says the Ehlanzeni District is one of the affected districts.
“We are saying there is an increase of cases this year compared to last year because last year the whole January, we had 69 cases. But if you look now, we have 314 cases hence there is an increase of cases. The mostly affected district is Ehlanzeni, the mostly affected sub-districts are local municipalities which are Nkomazi, City of Mbomela and Bushbuckridge and high numbers of those cases are at Nkomazi.”
Mpumalanga’s Health Department Spokesperson Dumisani Malamule says the department will embark on a malaria awareness campaign.
“As the Department of Health, we then decided that we need to go out on a campaign to inform people that during this time, they must be very careful as to how they conduct their lifestyles. For example, when it comes to malaria, people must make sure that they were long-sleeve and long trousers because malaria, during these floods, those mosquitoes carry the malaria disease and when they bite you it takes about 7-21 days for the symptoms to be seen. We want our people to know that when they experience any sign of fever, pain, vomiting, headache, they must just make sure they go to any clinic to get tested,” explains Malamule.
