UGANDA: Free mosquito nets for children and pregnant women

The Ugandan Health Ministry is to start distributing free insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to children under five years and pregnant women in two million households in an effort to fight malaria which kills between 70,000 to 100,000 people annually. The ministry's programme manager for malaria control, said the US $6 million that will be used in the exercise was secured from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and would buy an estimated 4.5 million ITNs in order to reduce the extent of malaria infestation in the country.