The Zanzibar Ministry of Health has asked citizens to avoid the use of traditional medicines to treat eye diseases that have hit the community in the recent past.
Speaking to journalists, the Deputy Minister of Health, Hassan Khamis Hafidh, said that doing so could increase the magnitude of the problem and advised patients to come to health centers to get treatment at the right time.
He said, the disease is transmitted through a virus from one person to another, so far a total of 4,579 patients have been reported in health centers and government and private hospitals in Unguja and Pemba.
Therefore, he asked the citizens to take hygiene precautions, including washing their hands frequently for once in protecting yourself from those diseases.
“It is important to note that there is no medicine to treat the disease eyes caused by these viruses of ‘Adenovirus’ treatment is aimed at reduce the intensity”.
“Infection occurs immediately by touching or touching the fluids of an infected person the transmission of these diseases such as tears, tears, etc.”.
He mentioned the main symptoms of this red eye disease are like the eye being red, itchy and burning, eyelids swollen and eyes afraid of light.
Other symptoms are white or yellow discharge from the eyes, blurred vision in the eyes, eye pain and you may experience severe flu symptoms.
Talking about the diseases that are not given priority where Zanzibar has joined other countries in the world to celebrate the day, he asked the citizens to increase their precautions to eradicate these diseases including mumps, schistosomiasis and kipungunya.
He said, non-priority diseases (NTDs) are diseases that affect poor people in countries that do not have enough resources.
He said, in general, about one and a half billion people around the world are estimated to have transmission of non-priority diseases.
He mentioned the non-prioritized disease that is bothering Zanzibar is schistosomiasis (way of urine), stomach and palm worms. But there are also diseases of leprosy, eyelids, kepu with rashes, and snake bites.
Also at different times there have been rabies and flu outbreaks dengue.
He said, Zanzibar has been following guidelines and implementing various strategies to combat and eliminate diseases that are not given priority in order to match the goals and objectives set by the World Health Organization.
He said, just recently Zanzibar celebrated the eradication of eyelid disease as a social epidemic.
