20100921
africanews

Nairobi — Doctors in most parts of the country will not be required to give pregnant women preventive malaria medicines.

According to new malaria treatment guidelines released on Tuesday by the government, this practice has not been of any value in areas of low malaria incidence such as Nairobi and the highlands.

"This treatment should only be used for pregnant women living in malaria endemic areas of Nyanza, Western and Coast provinces," says a notification to all provincial and district medical officers in the country.

The new guidelines, for the first time, require that anybody being treated for malaria must have been tested first and confirmed to be infected with the disease-causing parasite.

"Only patients who test positive should be treated for malaria," says the 50-page document.

In line with the World Health Organisation's recommendations issued in July, the government has also adopted a second line malaria treatment called DHA-PPQ.

This means in case of treatment failure from the current first line drugs, AL, a physician can adopt the newly-recommended medicines as an alternative.

According to the director of Medical Services, Dr Francis Kimani, nobody should be denied treatment simply because he or she cannot afford.

He lamented that despite the high number of deaths caused by malaria, most doctors, especially the newly- recruited medical staff, still believed the disease was not serious and was simple to treat.

Malaria causes five times more illness than TB, Aids, measles and leprosy combined.

It is also a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality, accounting for 10 per cent of maternal deaths and it also causes the death of 96 children daily.

Dr Kimani noted that pregnant women were vulnerable to infection.

He spoke while launching the third edition of the National Guidelines for Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention of Malaria at a hotel in Nairobi.