Tanzanian Minister for Health, Ummy Mwalimu said on Thursday that they had stepped up measures to fight malaria, including distributing 236,420 liters of biological anti-mosquito pesticides across the country.

Addressing parliament in the capital Dodoma, she said that while the anti-malaria pesticides were specifically being used to destroy mosquito larvae, measures adopted to fight the disease included the distribution of the anti-malaria pesticides, affeorts that had dropped the malaria prevalence rate by 7.3 per cent in 2017 from 14.8 per cent in 2016.

She said the achievements were made following strengthened national health systems, the level of investment in malaria control and a number of other strides taken by the government.

Mwalimu said after the measures taken by the government to fight malaria, the World Health Organisation (WHO) awarded her ministry with a certificate of recognition.

She however said that malaria had continued to remain one of the major threats to public health, causing hundreds of deaths annually.

Currently in Tanzania, 90 per cent of the population lives in areas that carry a high risk of malaria transmission, according to the National Malaria Control Programme.

Mwalimu also presented a catalogue of priorities set by the ministry for the next fiscal year that begins in July to improve health services provision in the country.

The priorities included the strengthening of vaccination services to children where she explained that up to December 2017, all of the targeted children had been vaccinated.

Similarly, a senior Tanzanian government official said on Thursday plans were afoot to upgrade the country’s diplomatic missions overseas.

The Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Susan Kolimba, told the National Assembly in the capital Dodoma that the government has come up with a 15-year plan to build, purchase and upgrade embassy offices in various foreign countries.

Kolimba said implementation of the plan started in the 2017/18 fiscal year, adding that currently the government is rehabilitating residential houses and offices of Tanzanian embassies in Harare, Kampala, Beijing, Pretoria and Cairo.

The deputy minister added that the government was also rehabilitating embassy buildings in Lilongwe, Kinshasa, Washington DC, Addis Ababa and Muscat.