Sustainable strategies are in place to ensure that Tanzania becomes a malaria free country, the Parliament was told in Dodoma yesterday.

The deputy minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Aisha Kigoda, mentioned one of the strategies as the Underfive Catch-Up Campaign which would see the distribution of 7.2 million mosquito nets countrywide.

She said under the campaign, which has already kicked off in Mtwara, Lindi and Tanga regions as well as Mpanda district, a total of 962,312 mosquito nets have been distributed to children under five years of age.

"The campaign has also begun in Lake Zone regions where registration has started and distribution of mosquito nets would begin next month," she said. She said the aim was in the long run to make malaria history.

Dr Kigoda said another strategy was the free distribution of two mosquito nets to each household in Tanzania Mainland.

The program, she explained, would be financed by the Global Fund in its eighth round. Through it the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare secured a $113 million (Sh149.6 billion) subsidy to purchase and distribute the mosquito nets.

"For more than five years, the Government has been implementing a program to subsidise long-lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets to pregnant women, These are sold for Sh500 compared to their actual price of between Sh7,000 and Sh9,000,"she explained.

According to statistics, 60,000 children die of malaria each year.

The deputy minister was responding to a question by Special Seats MP Maria Hewa. The MP had asked the Government to distribute freely the long lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets to pregnant women.