Pathfinder
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Sleeping sickness returns to Kalangala
By Martin Ssebuyira (email the author)
Posted Monday, February 6 2012 at 00:00
Upon arriving at Bugala, the main island housing the headquarters of Kalangala District, you are received with the beautiful scenery of the newly constructed beaches and forest cover. You can never think that there is a serious health problem until you move deep into the island.
Remejio Kijoma, a fisherman at Bumanji village in the District has suffered from endless fevers for close to three months.
He had entertained thoughts that he could have acquired HIV because he was losing weight by the day until he went to Kitovu Hospital in Masaka where he was diagnosed with sleeping sickness.
...
Fausta Nasebawanga of Busanga village in Kalangala almost lost her daughter because she was diagnosed with malaria in Kalangala clinics. It was after two weeks of endless malaria that Nasebawanga went to Kitovu hospital where her eight-months-old daughter was misdiagnosed with sleeping sickness.
...
Dr Edward Muwanga Kivumbi, Kalangala District?s veterinary Officer says tsetse flies had wiped out about 60 per cent of the population from the island and their increasing numbers are threatening them again.
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?We had reduced them by use of traps by through Sustainable Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Free Areas (STATFA) project that has come to an end.
The disease now poses a bigger threat,? he says.
He says they need about 30,000 traps but the district can only afford 400, which are insufficient for the 84 islands in the district. He says over 9.900sqm are tsetsefly infested with recent surveys showing 231 flies per trap per day.
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?We got five cases in 2010 and one in 2011. That is dangerous because World Health Organisation considers a case of sleeping sickness as an epidemic,? he adds...
Full text:
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artsculture/Reviews/-/691232/1320938/-/9o5q5/-/
By Martin Ssebuyira (email the author)
Posted Monday, February 6 2012 at 00:00
Upon arriving at Bugala, the main island housing the headquarters of Kalangala District, you are received with the beautiful scenery of the newly constructed beaches and forest cover. You can never think that there is a serious health problem until you move deep into the island.
Remejio Kijoma, a fisherman at Bumanji village in the District has suffered from endless fevers for close to three months.
He had entertained thoughts that he could have acquired HIV because he was losing weight by the day until he went to Kitovu Hospital in Masaka where he was diagnosed with sleeping sickness.
...
Fausta Nasebawanga of Busanga village in Kalangala almost lost her daughter because she was diagnosed with malaria in Kalangala clinics. It was after two weeks of endless malaria that Nasebawanga went to Kitovu hospital where her eight-months-old daughter was misdiagnosed with sleeping sickness.
...
Dr Edward Muwanga Kivumbi, Kalangala District?s veterinary Officer says tsetse flies had wiped out about 60 per cent of the population from the island and their increasing numbers are threatening them again.
<!--Ads and Related Buttons--><!-- Ads minus related Buttons -->
?We had reduced them by use of traps by through Sustainable Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Free Areas (STATFA) project that has come to an end.
The disease now poses a bigger threat,? he says.
He says they need about 30,000 traps but the district can only afford 400, which are insufficient for the 84 islands in the district. He says over 9.900sqm are tsetsefly infested with recent surveys showing 231 flies per trap per day.
<!--Ads and Related Buttons--><!-- Ads minus related Buttons -->
?We got five cases in 2010 and one in 2011. That is dangerous because World Health Organisation considers a case of sleeping sickness as an epidemic,? he adds...
Full text:
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artsculture/Reviews/-/691232/1320938/-/9o5q5/-/