Female anopheles freeborn is taking a blood meal from a human - courtesy

Health experts are pushing for resolutions to declare malaria a national disaster in South Sudan.

The call emerged during the opening of the ongoing national malaria conference in Juba.

Making an opening remark, the advisor at the conference, Dr. Samson Paul Baba, said if he was given the authority, he would declare malaria a national disaster in the country.

“If you give me the authority I would say yes, Honorable Minster Malaria is a disaster and we need to do something about it and we need to go back to the way it was,” he said.

He said the country needs to rethink the old days’ approach to do something about the disease.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Ismail Julla who is the Acting Director of the National Malaria Control Program agreed with Doctor Paul.

“I can add my voice to our advisor Dr. Samson Paul Baba because this question was raised to him and he said if he was allowed to declare Malaria as a disaster in the country he would say yes, so I agree.”

Ismail said malaria is killing plenty of people in South Sudan and is hindering children from going to schools and farmers from cultivating.

“Malaria is a disaster,  it is killing plenty of people in south Sudan so it’s a disaster because people can not go to school. If you can go to work or farm, Malaria is a problem – a very big problem,” Ismail added.

The three-day conference which started yesterday is being held under the theme: “Saving lives from malaria in the protracted humanitarian emergency setting, and the launch of zero malaria campaign starts with me .”

Malaria has been one of the biggest scourges on humanity for millennia and mostly kills babies and infants.

The disease still kills more than 400,000 people a year in the world even after dramatic progress with bed nets, insecticides, and drugs.