Global Fund in collaboration with the National Treasury, Ministry of Health, and the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA), national and county governments are driving the mass distribution of Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets.
Senior Programmer Officer for the Global Fund Country Team Lisa Butler said that they have engaged Kenya and other countries in a bid to control malaria.
Butler said that the nets are an important aspect of vector control, and the progress is on the right path.
“We have done several visits in Kisumu, Kericho, and Nandi counties but the campaign is being done in 24 counties around the country. We hope these nets reach all the intended households and are used until the next batch arrives. This is the fourth campaign that we are conducting in Kenya,” she added.
The distribution of the nets is done with the help of the community health promoters, the village elders and Kemsa.
“The campaign has seen a remarkable level of coordination, with participation from various government levels, community health promoters, and village elders. Despite the many parties involved, the coordination has been seamless.”
Butler said that the development of the Digimal platform which tracks the location of the nets, places them in order and gets the statistics on the distribution,.
“Kenya is demonstrating itself as a leader in this area and this type of work and we hope that this can also be done in other countries as well,” she added.
She said that the organisation follows up with the beneficiaries to ensure continued use of the mosquito nets.
Butler highlighted two key aspects of the campaign that stood out including the successful involvement of multiple stakeholders and the innovative use of the Digimal platform.
The platform, a locally developed online application, tracks net orders, locations, and deliveries, ensuring that nets are delivered where they are most needed.
One of the
partners actively involved in fighting malaria in Kenya, including Nandi
County, is the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa).
The agency
has been distributing insecticide-treated mosquito nets with funding from the
Global Fund.
The
programme targets 22 counties that are prone to mosquitoes, including
Rift Valley, Nyanza and Coast.
This
distribution is part of a broader campaign by Kemsa aimed at distributing 10.9
million nets across counties where the disease continues to pose a serious
health threat.
The Global Fund programme, implemented under the Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), in collaboration with the President’s Malaria Initiative, aims at distributing treated nets to 22 malaria-endemic counties.
Kemsa Quality Assurance Manager John Aduda lauded the net distribution programme saying they have collaborated well to ensure the programme is a success.
“Kemsa loaded the nets in the trailers and brought them to counties. We have done cross docking where we get the nets from the trailers to the small trucks and take them to the distribution posts. We have done the last-mile distribution in Nandi County.
The Global Fund is a worldwide partnership to defeat HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria and ensure a healthier, safer and more equitable future for all.
The Fund raises and invests more than US$5 billion a year to fight deadly infectious diseases, challenge the injustice that fuels them, and strengthen health systems and pandemic preparedness in more than 100 of the hardest-hit countries.
They unite world leaders, communities, civil society, health workers and the private sector to find solutions that have the most impact and take them to scale worldwide.
Over the past two decades, the Global Fund partnership has helped save 65 million lives, reduce the combined death rate from AIDS, TB, and malaria by 61 per cent and significantly increase life expectancy in low- and middle-income countries.
According to Global Fund, in 2022, there were 249 million cases of malaria 94 per cent of them in sub-Saharan Africa and 608,000 malaria deaths worldwide. Of those deaths, 76 per cent were children under five.
The process started with training and community sensitisation.
Among those trained included those in charge of public health at the community level as well as community health promoters.
The second stage was household registration through a digital platform, to ensure accountability.
Only those registered and details well captured through the platform eventually received the nets.
Once the registration is verified and the data submitted to Kemsa, the mosquito nets are delivered to local distribution points.
Awareness campaigns are ongoing to educate the public on the importance of sleeping under a treated mosquito net and the long-term benefits it provides.
