Rwanda looks to more tech solutions to fight malaria

Technological innovations will be one of the ways to end deaths stemming from malaria disease. This was one of the revelations by government officials as the country joined the rest of the world to mark World Malaria Day on Monday, April 26. Professor Claude Mambo Muvunyi, the Director General of Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), appealed for the deployment of technology to fight malaria and save our lives. “We look to have exhausted all our capacities, so let us foster innovation to achieve our target,” he said during a national event in Gisagara district. Muvunyi’s appeal is in line with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) call for a more diverse toolbox — investments and innovations that bring new vector control approaches, diagnostics, and antimalarial medicines to speed up the pace of progress against malaria. Dr. Jules Mugabo who represented WHO at the event said; “Without technological innovations, we won’t be able to achieve our zero malaria target by 2030. We need to employ technological devices to prevent, test, eradicate and treat this fatal disease.” In Rwanda, malaria cases dropped from 4.8 million in 2017 to 1.1 million in 2021, according to RBC. On the basis of fatality, deaths resulting from malaria scaled down from 700 in 2016 to 169 in 2021. Rwanda has been using some tech solutions in its efforts to end malaria infections and deaths, among them, the deployment of drones to spray malaria-causing mosquitos. This is in addition to the introduction of skin lotions— mosquito repellants— that can be applied in outdoor settings.

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Rwanda looks to more tech solutions to fight malaria