A total of 1232 malaria cases have been recorded in the Otjozondjupa region, with at least three fatalities from November last year, up to date.

The Ministry of Health and Social Services in Otjiwarongo revealed this during a stakeholders' meeting, highlighting the urgent need for effective malaria management strategies.

"We recorded 1232 in the Otjozondjupa region as a whole. We are now talking about 1146, giving us 93 %, and then we have 86 imposed cases that occurred outside the country. Within the local cases, some cases occurred within our region, or some transmission occurred outside the region, like we know the most affected regions are Zambezi, Ohangwena, Omusati, and Oshana, and Oshikoto is coming to Otjozondjupa. Those are the most affected regions. We admitted around 172 cases, giving us a 14 per cent, and unfortunately, we lost three people who died due to malaria. One from Okahandja, one from Okakarara and one from Grootfontein. We really need to take it seriously when it comes to the response."

At the same meeting, the chief environmental health practitioner in the region, Ndilimeke Mutikisha, talked about the importance of the stakeholders coming together to strategise on how to fight the spread of malaria in the region.

"With a malaria outbreak, it requires rapid and coordinated action because you need a lot of resources, be it financial or personnel, and it requires a lot of minds to think strategically and even responsibly so that the community does not suffer. So we believe that there is no single actor that can manage all aspects of a response. As I said, stakeholders bring resources and expertise and even reach the community on time. We are seated in Otjiwarongo, but where is the community? They are far from us as we are speaking, but if we have all the stakeholders involved in this outbreak, even the community leaders, they are able to reach the community. The headmen, they are able to communicate and even identify the cases before the person seated very far does it."

A total of 70,055 malaria cases have been confirmed in Namibia from last November to date.

Meanwhile, Otjozondjupa has recorded 6,663 hospital admissions due to disease, and among the cases, 57,183 are local cases, while 12,872 cases were imported from outside the country, with a total of 18 death cases recorded nationwide, signalling the severity of the malaria situation in the country.