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Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care has rolled out the 2020 Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) in high risk districts to kill mosquitoes and curb malaria related deaths.

This comes amid concerns about resistance from urbanites in the high burden areas who have in the past blocked spraying teams from accessing their premises.

IRS is a core vector control intervention involving application of a residual insecticide to internal walls and ceilings of housing structures to reduce malaria transmission.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health and Child Care said national malaria control IRS teams in all high risk areas commenced training this week until Monday next week.

The spraying season will run from next Tuesday until December 12, 2020.

The Ministry decentralised the training process to districts because of the stringent Covid-19 prevention and containment guidelines prescribed by the World Health Organisation and Government.

According to a recent Zimbabwe Annual 2019 Report by the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heavily burdened districts in Zimbabwe include Binga, Gokwe North, Beitbridge, Hwange, Mbire, Rushinga, Mudzi, Nyanga, Mutasa and Chimanimani.

Acting Matabeleland North Provincial Medical Director Dr Munekai Padingani said the province recorded an 83 percent success rate last year and failed to meet the national target of 90 percent because of resistance by residents in urban areas particularly in Hwange and Victoria Falls.

He said the province targets to beat the 90 percent mark this year.

“We are starting the programme and mainly targeting Binga and Hwange districts that are high risk areas in our province. Last year we had challenges in the urban areas mainly Hwange and Victoria Falls where people didn’t want their houses to be sprayed.

“We want to improve on that hence we are calling upon all residents to open their houses for teams to spray because as a nation our goal is to reduce mosquito and malaria density,” said Dr Padingani.

He said incidents rate in Binga stands at 12 cases per 1 000 people while in Hwange it is six cases per 1 000 people.

Other districts namely Bubi, Lupane, Nkayi, Tsholotsho and Umguza are now in pre-elimination stage hence Government only distributes mosquito nets to them than spraying, highlighted Dr Padingani.

He urged citizens to co-operate. — @ncubeleon