The Vice Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Emilia Lifaka Monjowa, has called on her colleagues to take the lead in the fight against Malaria, which she said, is slowly ravaging the lives of Cameroonians in local communities.

Hon Lifaka was speaking in Yaounde July 7, during a capacity workshop to reinforcement parliamentarians on the prevention and fight against malaria. According to statistic, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 660,000 people die of the disease in the region. Malaria remains the first cause of mortality with 43 percent. More than 2000 persons, according to the statistics, die annually from the disease. In 2013, 3.000 persons in Cameroon died of malaria, with 1.500 cases recorded in the Far North Region. Pregnant women and children below five years are the most affected groups.

Monjowa said Government is poised to reduce the spread of the disease by 75 percent by 2018.

On her part, the President of Parliamentarians Network for Fight against Malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, Marie Rose Nguini, said Malaria is the first killer disease in the country. “In every four hours a child dies from this ailment. For that matter, it is important for parliamentarians to do something to prevent the spread of the message, to their various communities.

Hon. Nguini called on the population to use long lasting mosquito bed nets as well as free treatment of children and pregnant women. Speaking to the Country’s Director of 'Malaria No More', Olivia Ngou, she said the workshop is to help increase Government resources for the national Malaria control programme. “We want parliamentarians to sensitise their communities on the prevention of Malaria. We will give specific messages that can save lives such as; the use of mosquito nets.

Also we like parliamentarians to emphasise the need for people to immediately go to the health centres each time they have a fever. We will like them to push the agenda forward by urging Government to continue allocating resources to support this fight. We also want them to champion the fight against Malaria by using their own ideas in spreading the message nationwide,” Olivia Ngou said.

Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary of the National Malaria Control Programme, Etienne Fondjo, said Sub-Saharan Africa is a habitat for anopheles mosquito that causes malaria. That is why people must respect the WHO’s strategy of cleaning their environment in a bid to curb the habitation of mosquitoes around them.

Fondjo used the workshop as a platform to call on pregnant women to follow their treatment so that they can protect themselves and unborn children. He urged the parliamentarian to spread the message of diagnosis before medication in their various communities.