Novartis, a global healthcare company, has organised a clean-up exercise at Chorkor in Accra to mark World Malaria Day.
The exercise, which lasted for over two hours on Tuesday, helped to desilt gutters and clear stagnant waters, serving as a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes are common flying insects or parasites that cause malaria through bites, hence the disease could be controlled and prevented when environments are kept clean.
Mr Ernest Selase Dufay, a medical representative at Novartis, said mosquitoes had become part of communities and remained the cause of malaria infections, and that Chorkor was selected for the clean-up because it was a malaria-prone area.
The level of sanitation or cleanliness in the area was below average due to its dense population, he said.
“We came here today to create awareness on how malaria can be prevented and how residents can protect themselves,” Mr Dufay said, and led the team to expose residents to the signs and symptoms of malaria.
Mr Theophilus Isaac Nii Kpakpo Quaye, Assembly Member of Chorkor, said the clean-up would help reduce the high incidence of malaria in the community and urged the residents to practice good sanitation.
He commended Novartis for choosing the community for the exercise and appealed to them to visit the place often.
World Malaria Day
World Malaria Day (WMD) is marked annually on the 25th of April to focus global attention on malaria and its devastating impact on families, communities and nations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.
This year’s celebration is on the theme: “Harness Innovation to Reduce the Malaria Disease Burden and Save Lives”.
It aligns with the call of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to urgently scale up innovation and deployment of new tools in the fight against malaria, while advocating for equitable access to malaria prevention and treatment, within the context of building health system resilience.
The WHO says no single tool would solve the problem of malaria and call for investments and innovation for new vector control approaches, diagnostics, and antimalarial medicines to speed the pace of progress.
