The Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa, has asked the Ministry of Health to come up with a strategy on a countrywide spraying against mosquitoes so as to eliminate malaria in order to save lives and reduce the high costs of treating malaria.

“I want you (Minister of Health, Dr. Ruth Aceng) and World Health Organisation (WHO) to reconcile your positions on spraying because countries which have eliminated malaria have sprayed,” Tayebwa said.

“Let us make a decision as a country that we are going to spray and we Parliament, we shall give you that money because a person from Mitooma doesn’t know your negotiations and politics of you disagreeing with WHO, they don’t even know WHO though it is our biggest partner, what they want is eliminating malaria,” he added.

Tayebwa made the call during the Malaria Walk held in Kampala. The Walk comes at the time World Health Organisation ranks Uganda 3rd on the list of global burdened countries with at least 12 million malaria cases reported annually. The 2021 World Malaria Report ranked Uganda as the 5th top contributor to global malaria deaths.

The Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, promised to ensure the nationwide strategy of eliminating malaria is brought to Parliament. She also called for increased funding to malaria elimination using locally generated resources.

This, she said, will cover the gap that will be left by donor who have indicated plans to reduce funding to Uganda in order to focus on more global challenges.

“Re-planning requires that we identify a safe chemical that can be used so that we can carry out the spraying and bring down this burden of Malaria and we stop putting ourselves as number three in the race against donating Malaria.

As a Ministry, we shall go back and re-plan and develop the strategy and present it to Parliament. That will be after presenting it to the Cabinet because it has to start from the top,” said Aceng.