The number of malaria-related deaths in Indonesia’s South Halmahera region dropped from 226 in 2003 to four in 2008, while the incidence of malaria went down by 50 percent for the same period, according to the local district health office. One initiative credited for these drops is the integration of anti-malaria efforts in maternal and child health care campaigns, IRIN says. Under a program that continues to date, nurses and midwives assist in the malaria program by providing diagnosis and treatment and distributing bed nets to the women they treat.
South Halmahera is remote district in eastern Indonesia that comprise 400 islets and has 200,000 people.
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