By James Karuhanga<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rwanda will by the end of\nthis month start using drones in spraying mosquito prone areas as it steps up\nefforts to eliminate malaria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, the Director-General of Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), the pilot phase will begin in Gasabo District before being rolled out to other parts of the country by the end this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is (spraying mosquitos\nusing drones) planned to start by end 2019. The drones are already available\nthrough Charis UAS and the Bti product is being procured,\u201d Nsanzimana\ndisclosed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Charis Unmanned Aerial\nSolutions is a local drone technology company while Bacillus thuringiensis\nsubspecies israelensis (Bti) is a bacteria found in soil and used as an\ninsecticide that kills premature mosquitoes known as larvae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe pilot or feasibility\nphase is planned in Gasabo District. Thereafter, other districts will be\ncovered targeting marshlands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials earlier said that\nthe drones can fly for about 15 minutes on a single battery and spray an area\nof 40\nhectares<\/a> in a single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few African countries, including Malawi, have successfully deployed the drones in mapping and spraying mosquito breeding areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A mosquito-borne disease,\nmalaria is a life-threatening illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, Rwanda accelerated\nefforts to eliminate malaria launching larviciding and spatial manual spraying\nto control mosquitoes from breeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Launched in Kamonyi District,\nthe initiative targeted mosquitoes breeding habitats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The drones and manual\nspraying initiatives come to supplement the already existent\nmeasures<\/a> against malaria, among them, mass distribution of bed nets,\nmalaria case management in communities where community health workers are\nequipped to screen and treat malaria, free malaria treatment for Rwandans in\nUbudehe 1 and 2 social clusters, and indoor residual spraying in malaria prone\ndistricts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After recording 436, 000\nfewer malaria cases in 2017 compared to 2016, Rwanda is now considered to be\nunder the category of progress by the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The country reduced malaria\ncases thanks to different strategies that are being implemented under its\nmalaria contingency plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to a resurgence\nof malaria in Rwanda, in the recent past, home-based management (HBM) was\nexpanded to enable community-health workers to provide malaria treatment to\npatients of all ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latest official\nstatistics on malaria in Rwanda point to increased home-based management\nrate managed by community health workers from 50 per cent in 2018 to 57.1 per\ncent in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was a decrease of more\nthan 50 per cent in severe malaria cases and malaria related mortality from\n2016 to June 2019 following the roll out of Home-Based Management of malaria\n(HBM) in both children and adults,\u201d Nsanzimana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, he said, annual\nmalaria cases decreased from 4.6 million in 2018 to 3.9 million in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malaria incidence also\ndecreased from 394 per 1,000 people in 2018 to 328 per 1,000 in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Globally, according to the\nWHO, in 2017 there were an estimated 219 million cases of malaria in 87\ncountries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of December 2017, there\nwere 219 million cases of malaria up from 217 million cases in the previous\nyear, the WHO says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Africa carries a\ndisproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2017, the region\nwas home to 92 per cent of malaria cases and 93 per cent of malaria deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read original\narticle<\/a> on New Times.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By James Karuhanga Rwanda will by the end of this month start using drones in spraying mosquito prone areas as it steps up efforts to eliminate malaria. According to Dr. Sabin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}