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The Limpopo Malaria Institute says a high number of malaria cases have already been reported in the province and work is underway to fumigate close to 800 000 households across Limpopo.

The Malaria Institute’s Deputy Director Programmes Manager, Erick Mabunda, said fumigation throughout Limpopo’s five districts is ongoing, and they have beefed up their personnel to curb the epidemic.

A number of campaigns

“We are more than ready. This year we have managed to employ more temporary workers and we are busy now with operations in all our five districts in Limpopo,” said Mabunda.

“This year we are going to spray 798 000 structures, we increased it from 656 000 that we covered last year because of the number of cases that we saw coming up after we sprayed. Some of them were from structures not on our spraying programme last season.”

Mabunda emphasised that there had been a number of campaigns in the province to inform residents about the dangers of malaria and how to overcome some challenges they encounter during spraying.

“We have done door-to-door campaigns just to inform people about the importance of having their houses sprayed. But for now people are responding positively,” he said.

Measures in place

In an effort to reduce infections and mortality, Mabunda said they had started spraying early this season and would employ all their strategies, including indoor residual spraying and surveillance of all cases.

“This year we are confident that we will reduce the infections and death numbers because we have treatment and insecticides in place,” Mabunda said.

Malaria can be prevented by burning mosquito coils or by hanging mosquito nets over the bed, by staying indoors at night, wearing long sleeves and pants to keep skin protected and also by spraying aerosol insecticide in the house. – Health-e News

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Mogale Mojela

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Land in the Eastern Cape, once ploughed by villagers and the source of fresh produce, is now used either just for grazing purposes or is going unused altogether.

Residents of these areas, who once lived off their land – following a healthy diet complete with a good amount of fresh vegetables and produce – are now becoming increasingly unhealthy as their diets are no longer balanced.

Land used only for grazing

Research conducted among a group of residents in Flagstaff and Lusikisiki town in the Eastern Cape showed that people no longer farm their fields and work at growing vegetables all year round.

Ndabisukile Zinto (57) at Holy Cross location in Lusikisiki says he owns a garden where he plants vegetables. However what he produces does not sustain his family for the entire year, and so he has stopped ploughing his 2 hectares – the amount of land allocated to every resident by the local chief.

“Each resident is allocated land wide enough to build a house with a garden and a field with land to be used for ploughing. However nowadays we do not make use of the field allocated for ploughing and the land is being used only for grazing. People have become lazy and our children now attend schools so no one seems interested to use the fields for ploughing. This has resulted to us eating all these oily foods that make us sick. I am now living with diabetes,” Zinto said.

His wife Nomvuselelo Zinto (50) agrees that when the vegetables from their garden are finished, they resort to buying them in town. But often the produce in town is too expensive because it is brought in from other areas, and the added transportation costs make them unaffordable.

Unhealthy lifestyle

“My monthly groceries include 20kg of mealie meal, 10kg of rice, and a bag of potatoes, 5 litres cooking oil, 12.5kg flour, soup, cabbage and variety of meat. I always ensure that there is enough meat because my husband loves it. The drivers charge us a lot of money for our groceries,” Nomvuselelo said.

Lindile Ndayi, Non Communicable Diseases Manager at the Qawukeni Local Clinic, says their data collection is informed by the District Health Information system programme which works on specific patient health conditions.

“Obesity is a result of an unhealthy lifestyle leading to chronic conditions. We do not have specific statistics for obese patients because it is a lifestyle disease of people who don’t get proper exercise and fail to eat a balanced diet, leading to other health problems. If a person fails to maintain a healthy lifestyle, it can result in conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, chronic pulmonary disease, strokes and many other conditions,” she said.

“The advice that we give to our patients is to eat balanced diet. What I have noticed, people in our communities eat lot of starch, braai meat and almost no vegetables.  They have stopped ploughing their fields to get fresh produce,” Lindile Ndayi said. – Health-e News.

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Zizo Zikali

In Monday’s arbitration hearings in Johannesburg Christine Nxumalo, whose sister died at the infamous NGO Precious Angels, suggested to retired Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke that such officials had made false testimonies during the arbitration process to protect themselves from being held criminally liable for the lost lives.

‘Everything she said was a lie’

The official death toll of patients lost during the transfer from Life Esidimeni facilities to a number of unlicensed NGOs now stands at 141.

Clearly frustrated with testimonies of NGO officials, particularly Precious Angels’ founder Ethel Ncube, Nxumalo said, “I can tell you that everything she said was a lie.”

She also said the families had repeatedly warned the health department about the implications of ending the contract with Life Esidimeni but “we received no assistance whatsoever”.

She is critical of the government but is more interested in “getting the truth”. Even though she has opened up a case with the police and her sister’s body was autopsied, she had still not heard anything from the police, nor has she had any access to the post mortem results.

Ethel [Ncube] had told Nxumalo that her sister had died on August 17 2016, but it emerged, from a paramedics report, that Virginia Machpelah had actually “passed on” on the 15^th.

‘Truth over justice’

Nxumalo said she was “hoping” to get answers through this arbitration process but she feels officials have consistently told “lies”.

To make matters worse, Machpelah’s daughter and Nxumalo’s niece died unexpectedly two weeks ago and they have also not yet received the post mortem results and are not sure of the cause of death.

“In fact the 8^th of October which was Sunday was her 21^st and the very next day she died,” she said. 

Nxumalo said that Virginia’s daughter “was affected” by the circumstances around her mother’s death.

Moseneke, who is leading the proceedings, suggested that Nxumalo’s suggestion for amnesty for NGO leaders would translate to “truth over justice”.

Nxumalo admitted that it was a “catch 22” situation. But, she said, “[If you give them] amnesty, that would probably be the only thing that would get them to say something, because I think it’s a natural reaction … you won’t tell the truth – not if it’s going to get you in jail.” – Health-e News.

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Amy Green

Stuttering is an impediment that affects fluency of speech. It can begin during childhood and last well into one’s adult years.

What causes stuttering?

Stuttering can be caused by different things:

• Genetics
• Language and speech development when young
• Neurophysiology (stuttering can occur after a head injury or stroke)
• Anxiety (although emotional trauma doesn’t always cause stuttering)

How is it diagnosed?

Stuttering can be diagnosed by a speech therapist. If you suspect your child stutters, it’s important to seek help and treatment as soon as possible.

Almost 70 million people worldwide stutter. There are ways to treat and control stuttering through speech therapy and breathing exercises, but there is no definite cure.

This video also gives us insight into stuttering in a funny, yet informative way.

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Marelize Wilke