MALARIA & COVID-19: A tale of an epidemic in the midst of the storm!

COVID-19 has claimed over 180k lives globally and over 2.5million infected. The world's health care systems are overwhelmed. The scare is on third - world African countries with poor health care systems. Many countries have instituted national lockdowns in view of trying to minimize or control the spread of the virus. In Zimbabwe, a 21-day national lockdown was implemented from the 30th of March 2020 to 19 April 2020, this was further extended to the 3rd of May 2020 as the country had not met the WHO regulations and guidelines to lifting the restrictions.

Zimbabwe is no stranger to life-threatening outbreaks with a sour history of Cholera outbreaks in 2008 and 2018 claiming thousands of lives. A pandemic such as COVID-19 poses a serious threat to the citizens of Zimbabwe. To date, 28 positive cases have been recorded with 4 deaths on record. The health care system in Zimbabwe was/is dependent upon donor funding for the supply of medicines and with the country on lockdown coupled with an underperforming economy, the health system is incapacitated to manage the pandemic. It is left to the citizens to try and contain the transmission of the disease which can claim millions in Zimbabwe.

It never rains but pours in Zimbabwe as another outbreak has hit the country. A malaria outbreak has claimed over 150 lives (20% increase) and infected over 150 000 (40% increase) people from the beginning of the year. Malaria remains a killer disease claiming over 300k lives globally, 90% from Africa alone. 79% of the Zimbabwean population remains at risk of contracting the disease.

We are in the malaria season in Zimbabwe which stretches from February to June when the rainy season normally passes. This leaves fertile water bodies for the vectors (female Anopheles) to breed and thus posing a threat of infections. Infections are spread through mosquito bites off an infected person to another. Over the years, malaria prevention methods have been implemented successfully in Zimbabwe which has seen the rate of malaria incidence lowering from 132/1000 population in 2000 to 22/1000 in 2016. Due to heavy rainfall season in 2016/17, the rate shot up and with the recent Cyclone Idai, cases of malaria rose in 2018/19 season. However, the current jump in the number of cases raises questions as to what is causing this outbreak? Why has there been this rise in the number of deaths?

The cases have been linked to failures in malaria prevention from the community, access of Insecticide Treated Nets, and above all lack of preparedness on the government's end. We hope that the deaths are not a result of drug resistance as this may pose another serious threat to the population.

Symptoms of Malaria and COVID-19 are highly similar meaning one can easily mistake one for the other! Are the malaria deaths just malaria deaths or?