January 2003
Welcome to the 9th National Malaria Update.
This update serves to present the current trends in the national malaria cases and deaths. It provides feedback to a range of persons involved in malaria control programmes. The figures presented are subject to modification and thus changes in previous month data may occur.
The annual notified malaria cases for South Africa from 1999-2003 are presented below. The malaria notifications for January 2003, a 65% lower than those for the January 2000.
Limpopo
A total of 1594 malaria cases and 11 malaria deaths were notified for the period of January 2003. Most of the malaria cases notified were from the Vhembe District (1134), followed by Mopani (378) and the rest of the province (82). The outbreak peaked this month and the number of malaria cases is on the decline in the province. Since the forth week of January, weekly cases have showed a marked decrease from more than 400 cases per week to 100 cases per week for the entire province. Refer to the section below for a more detailed report.
Mpumalanga
For the period of January 2003, 622 malaria cases and 3 malaria deaths were notified. The Barbeton District notified 13 malaria cases, Kabokweni - 93, Nelspruit – 80, Shongwe – 72 and Tonga – 364. Facilities reporting the greatest burden of malaria cases include: Glenthorpe Clinic (8), Themba Hospital (45), Rob Ferreira (41), Shongwe Hospital (16) and Kamatipoort Municipal Clinic (137). The Kruger Park reported 6 cases of malaria from the Paul Kruger, Skukuza and Nwanetzi areas.
KwaZulu-Natal
For the period of January 2003, 322 malaria cases and zero malaria deaths were notified. The vast majority of cases were reported from Ingwavuma (151) and South (162) Districts.
The rest of South Africa
For the period, January to September 2002, 466 malaria cases and seven malaria deaths were notified. Provinces are still submitting malaria notifications and thus this figure is not complete. The number of reported malaria figures for each province are as follows: Free State (119), Gauteng (135), Northern Cape (4), Northern Province (4), North West (189) and Western Cape (19).
No malaria notifications have been submitted from September onwards.
LIMPOPO OUTBREAK UPDATE
Graphs of Weekly Malaria Notifications: Limpopo Province: 4 February 2003
Information supplied by Mr Philip Kruger, Limpopo Programme Manager (4 February 2003)
In order to follow the current malaria outbreak in the Limpopo Province, graphs were drawn of the weekly malaria notifications in the 4 most severely affected districts in the province for the period July 2002 to January 2003. Note that the old magisterial districts were used for this analysis.
From the graphs it is clear that cases showed a dramatic increase as from the 2nd week of January. It seems however that cases have peaked in the 3rd week at that the situation is slowly returning to normal. Due to a normal delay in notifications, the figures for the last week in January might still be adjusted upwards.
Compiled by the National Malaria Control Programme, National Department of Health, with the assistance of the Provincial Malaria Control Programme Managers
Please contact Ms Johnson for any enquiries at tel no: (012) 312-0046 or e-mail: johnsc@health.gov.za
