Malawi eliminates lymphatic filariasis disease

Minister of Health Jean Kalilani yesterday said Malawi has managed to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF) disease known as mchecha in Chichewa.
Kalilani said this in Lilongwe during a news conference on the 68th World Health Assembly which took place in Geneva from 18 to 26 May 2015.
She said the recent World Health Organisation (WHO) Transmission Assessment Survey (TAS) shows that there is now no transmission of the disease to humans in Malawi.
Kalilani said: “Since there is no transmission of the disease to human, the country has stopped mass drug administration for LF disease.”

She added that the mass drug administration for onchocerciasis will also be stopped in the next one to two years depending on the results of the studies underway that are showing that the disease is about to be eliminated.

The minister said the delegates at the assembly for the first time also tackled issues of air pollution which is the world’s largest single environmental health risk with 4.3 million deaths occurring from exposure to indoor air pollution and 3.7 million deaths attributed to exposure to outdoor air pollution every year worldwide.

The World Health Assembly is the supreme decision-making body for WHO which meets every year in May in Geneva and is attended by ministers of Health and delegates from 194 United Nation (UN) member States. 