Stolen mosquito nets leave families exposed

BY BONIFACE GIKANDI

NAIROBI, KENYA: Some of the 11 million mosquitos bed nets donated to public health centres are often stolen and put to strange, but very innovative use—some are used to make wedding gowns, while others are used as coffin linings or mesh barriers in the backyard vegetable patch. 

Although these nets should be distributed without charge to most of the 1.5 million women who give birth in Kenya each year as part of a government initiative to roll back malaria, those susceptible to malaria infections are oftentimes not the main beneficiaries.

Experts are now worried that this may  diminish the impact of the 2009-2017 National Malaria Strategy launched by the Kenya government with support of a British donor agency (DfID) and other stakeholders.

It had been   projected that 60 per cent of the expectant mothers would be sleep under treated mosquito bed nets   distributed to health centres by Population Services International (PSI).   However, most mothers are being denied these blue mosquito nets treated with insecticides. Florence Mwangi was one of the new patients at   Nanyuki district hospital who was told she was not entitled to a mosquito net.

BENEFICIARIES

“I was only told that   since Laikipia was not a malaria zone I was not entitled to one. I only got one after I made a scene,” says    the  mother of four.

Often beneficiaries of such nets are unaware that they are part of a donor-funded programme to eliminate malaria in disease-prone areas. 

Peter Njaramba, a farmer in Kandara district, says he uses the mosquito net be purchased for Sh300 from a health worker to fence off his tomato garden. Njaramba, like other buyers of these subsidised nets, make their purchases on the backstreets where monitoring is difficult. From the 5,496,110 treated mosquito nets distributed to health centres by PSI since 2011, a good number have found their way into retail stores.

The sale of such nets is ill disguised—at Nairobi’s Muthurwa market, stocks of government-labelled nets are out in the open, and in one stall, we identified nets each selling at Sh450. 

As we walked out of the stall, the shopkeeper shouted a warning to other stockists. Most stalls stock mosquito nets smuggled from hospitals  by health  workers and sold to traders, and many of these   find their way into supermarket shelves and  apparel stores after they have been repackaged and relabeled.

Contraband

This goes on across the country. In one shop   near Murang’a district hospital, a  hospital employee carrying   a paper bag of  mosquito nets spotted her  boss returning from lunch then hurriedly hid the contraband. The kiosk operator who had been asked to keep an eye of the contraband noticed a packet of 10 mosquito nets.

Many hospital authorities  seem   to be unaware of the illicit trade but at the Maragua district hospital, the department of public health recently released a memo highlighting the distribution guidelines, an indication that it may have caught on to this illicit activity.  The laxity in distribution has not gone unnoticed elsewhere and recently,  the chairman of The Medical Services Consumers Association, Antony Mwangi, noted that the monitoring of  the distribution process should be tightened. He thinks this vice can be contained if there is intervention from higher up.  “Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia must tighten the noose so that culprits are prosecuted in court, otherwise the war on malaria will be lost,” said Mwangi.

But some demands for redress are more tepid. Kirinyaga governor Joseph Ndathi warned against the misuse of mosquito nets, while a   nominated member of the county assembly, Mary Waithira,  thinks re-education would help contain the thefts.

“The misuse of nets is still endemic even though   the Murang’a South region has been declared as mosquito prone areas,” says Waithira.

A Public Relation Officer in the Ministry of Health, John King’ori, says 11 million mosquito nets have been distributed to areas identified as malaria zone to curb the spread of the disease. “However, the nets are designed to be distributed to only the zones identified as malaria zones in Kenya,” he explained.

PSI spokesperson Gladys Mutiso says there are guidelines designed to ensure only the deserving people are given nets. She says the Ministry of Health, who are PSI’s key partners in the project, monitor  the external distribution of the nets.