Butebo man burns own house in protest against indoor residual spraying

Police in Butebo District are investigating circumstances under which a 40-year-old man reportedly set fire on his own house in protest against Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), arguing that the pesticides used are harmful to human beings and birds.

Indoor residual spraying or IRS is the process of spraying the inside of dwellings with an insecticide to kill mosquitoes that spread malaria
The district criminal investigation officer [CID], Mr Henry Manana, told Daily Monitor that Fred Tuwache, a resident of Kachocha village, Kachocha parish, Petete Sub-county blocked the spraying on grounds that the chemicals cause impotence among men and increase the spread of bedbugs.

“The second team zeroed on him insisting to have his house sprayed against malaria but he instead picked a match box and set it on fire before he fled leaving his property ablaze,” Mr Manana said.
Mr Tuwache reportedly told the health team and police that the previous IRS conducted in 2016 at his home left all his birds dead and some members of his family sick because of the “harmful insecticides.”

However, some people claim that the negative effects of the insecticides used make them oppose the programme.
“We shall not allow it because no matter how much they spray, mosquitos and bedbugs continue to multiply. Besides, we fear that the chemicals being used will make us [men] impotent,” said Moses Mugombesya, another resident.

The Petete LC3 chairperson, Mr Kenneth Kintu, told Daily Monitor Mr Tuwache and Mr Mugombesya are just some of the several residents who have resisted IRS.
“Some locals were attempting to resist the exercise on speculation that the pesticides could have negative side effects on them but we engaged them and encouraged them to embrace the programme because of its importance in scaling down malaria. Some families are actively welcoming the programme,” he said.

Mr Kintu further noted that “We are calling upon the residents to embrace the programme because the pesticides were tested and recommended by World Health Organisation (WHO). Whoever resists will be treated as a saboteur of a government programme.”
However, the district health officer [DHO], Dr Nathan Tibako, claimed that the exercise was moving on smoothly despite few incidents in some areas where people attempted to resist.
“We have continued to engage and sensitize the communities to embrace the programme and a good number of them have totally and wholly responded,” he said.

In 2017, malaria figures in Uganda were alarming; with Ministry of Health statistics showing the disease was claiming about 80,000 lives per year, equivalent to an average of 200 people every day.
Between 20 and 23 percent of those dying from malaria are children under the age of five. That is about 40 children in this cohort dying every day.
Malaria also accounts for 25 to 40 percent of sick people going to health facilities, 20 percent of all sick people who are admitted, and 9-14 percent of patients who are admitted in health facilities for all diseases and end up dying.

However, government last week said Uganda has continued to make good progress towards eradicating malaria by reducing the prevalence from 42 percent in 2009 to the current 19 percent.
The ministry of health's public relations officer Odiira Nansamba noted that malaria testing in public sector has improved from 60 percent to over 90 percent.

In 2015 and early 2016, the country had an unusual outbreak of malaria in areas that had once been declared free from the disease after an episode of the IRS intervention by the government a year before. The Ministry of Health had assured the public that with the spraying, the country was to completely eliminate the disease. They had argued that Dichloro-Diphenyl- Trichloroethane (DDT), a synthetic chemical used in IRS was particularly good at killing insects and that it would take many years for mosquitoes to breed again but suddenly people; especially children, got infected. Many even failed to respond to first line drug for complicated malaria - artesunate injection and coartem.