Dont treat every fever as malaria – Public advised

Health News of Thursday, 28 August 2014

Source: Graphic Online

A Clinical Pharmacist, Ms Ellen Sam, has advised the public to not treat every bout of fever as malaria since the mismanagement of such illnesses could lead to drug resistance.

According to her, drug resistance is one of the major barriers to kicking malaria out of Africa.

Ms Sam was speaking at a forum for journalists organised at Dodowa by the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN). The network is made up of journalists who write on malaria.

The forum, which was sponsored by MalariaCare, an initiative aimed at improving the management of malarial cases in seven regions of the country was on the theme: The Media as Partners in the T3 strategy.

The Malaria T3 strategy is a call on clinicians to test, treat and track all cases of malaria presented to them, in line with the effort to scale up diagnostic testing, treatment and surveillance for malaria.

Ms Sam advised against mono-therapy or the use of individual components of malaria treatment drugs, stressing that such treatment was not effective.

Combination therapy prevents or slows down resistance, Ms Sam advised and cautioned that we must use current drugs with great care as there are no more weapons in our armoury.

She, therefore, called on all to ensure that they were tested for malaria before taking any anti-malaria drug.

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Dont treat every fever as malaria - Public advised