SANAA, 5 March 2008 (IRIN) - An extensive Saudi-Yemeni campaign to combat malaria began on 3 March in three Yemeni provinces near the border with Saudi Arabia, with the aim of reducing malaria in those areas.

The campaign, which will run until 28 March and cover 13 districts, is targeting areas near the Saudi-Yemeni border and parts of Tehama region.

Mohammed al-Hinami, a senior official at the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), told IRIN the campaign is targeting 263,319 people living in over 45,264 houses.

"Specialised teams will spray 141,335 rooms, using effective anti-malaria pesticides," he said, adding that the campaign will be carried out by more than 300 workers.

The Saudi-Yemeni partnership in combating malaria began in 2001 and NMCP said the two countries aim to make the peninsula malaria-free by 2015. In March 2007, 16,707 houses, with 48,580 rooms, inhabited by 100,803 were sprayed thanks to a Saudi-Yemeni campaign in six border districts.

Mosquito nets distributed

On 15 January the NMCP distributed 381,138 mosquito nets to 95 malaria-infected districts.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Yemen, some 60 percent of the population live in malarial areas. Globally, malaria causes at least one million deaths per year and in Yemen 12,000 people die of the disease every year. There are 800,000-900,000 malaria cases in Yemen annually.

Plasmodium falciparum, a species of parasite, causes 90 percent of malaria cases in Yemen and is responsible for the vast majority of malaria deaths, WHO said.

According to the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP), new research shows that high rates of population inflows from Somalia will represent a continued risk of reintroducing the parasite.

There are about 800,000 African migrants in Yemen, mostly from the Horn of Africa, according to the Ministry of Interior, and more are arriving daily.

maj/ar/cb

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.IRINnews.org

IRIN news