The Rwandan Health Ministry will distribute mosquito nets produced in the country for the first time in its fight against malaria, an official said on Saturday.
Of some 7 million mosquito bed nets to be distributed in January, 3.5 million were locally produced, Aimable Mbituyumuremyi, head of malaria and other parasitic diseases division at the Rwanda Biomedical Center told reporters here.
Started last year at Kigali's special economic zone, the country's local company Garment Vision Ltd currently produces 16,200 mosquito nets a day, and the overall target is to produce 8 million bed nets per year to satisfy Rwandan market, according to officials.
The health ministry has been spending 15-17 million U.S. dollars every year to import 7 million mosquito nets, Mbituyumuremyi said.
Beneficiaries of the free bed nets include low-income citizens, pregnant women and children under one year old, the official said.
The health ministry statistics showed that 4,746,958 malaria cases were reported in 2017, a slight decrease from 4,794,778 cases in 2016.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria affects around 200 million people across the globe annually and proves fatal to more than 400,000 -- particularly children.
xinhua