By Mary Mwendwa.
Residents of Chemolingot District in East Pokot , Baringo County have had to suffer the brunt of Malaria as a serious shortage of Anti Malaria drugs hits the region.
A scene at Kamurio Dispensary which is about 35 KM from Chemolingot town says it all.Women with children clutched on their backs , sick with malaria related symptoms at the dispensary meet the ugly truth of no drugs to offer to them.Faces of misery are seen here, many whispering in low tones pondering on the next move.
Chepochemurian Lokopomio a mother in her late 30s with three children looks frustrated after the sad news of no Anti Malaria Drugs are delivered to her by Sylvia Wangui a clinician serving at the Dispensary.Chepochemurian has been refered to Barpelo dispensary or Chemolingot Sub-District Hospital.Barpelo is within the region where many people go and Chemolingot is far away with no proper transport.A Motorbike charges 2000ksh one way and many patients cannot afford that , some walk and its takes them ages to reach destination.
Silvia says that since the year started she has experienced a serious shortage of drugs to treat malaria.”I recently had a case of a 12 year old who was brought here weak and i had no Anti Malaria drugs, i gave the mother pain killers and told her to take the boy either at Barpelo Dispensary which is managed by missionaries or Chemolingot.The mother took the boy home and became very weak and lost his life.Kamurio dispensary serves many people from other villages and the drugs brought are never enough.We have sent complains but nothing is forth coming.Like the month of July and August were the worst , malaria cases were too many and we had no drugs.”
According to Dr. Charles Maswai, MOH , Chemolingot Sub-district Hospital , “The entire district of Chemolingot has been experiencing a serious shortage of Anti Malaria drugs since the year begun, 2015.I do not know specifically where the problem lies but we put in the right request according to our data here and we get very little drugs which cannot cater for this population.This is now a big challenge because this region is malaria prone yet patients cannot access drugs.”
Kenya Medical Research Institute, KEMRI reports Malaria as the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Kenya .
- 25 million out of a population of 34 million Kenyans are at risk of malaria.
- It accounts for 30-50% of all outpatient attendance and 20% of all admissions to health facilities.
- An estimated 170 million working days are lost to the disease each year (MOH 2001).
- Malaria is also estimated to cause 20% of all deaths in children under five (MOH 2006).
- The most vulnerable group to malaria infections are pregnant women and children under 5 years of age.
