Residents of Kisii county have been urged to ensure that they sleep under mosquito nets in order to protect themselves against mosquitoes which transmit the disease.
Making the appeal, Kisii county health committee chairperson Wilfred Monyenye explained that the disease has become rampant due to the onset of rainfall.
Monyenye advised the residents to clear bushes around their houses and drain stagnant water around their compounds to destroy breeding grounds for the vectors.
Monyenye spoke at the Kisii level five hospital resource center during a stakeholders meeting, blamed some of the residents for misusing mosquito nets which they were given free by the government as some use them as fences for their kitchen gardens and confine chicken.
He noted that the most vulnerable people were children, pregnant mothers and the elderly.
The official pointed out that in the recent few weeks since the onset of the rain season health facilities in the county have been receiving many cases of malaria especially pregnant mothers and children under the age of five.
Meanwhile, he urged the residents in the county to dress in warm clothes in order to stem out infection of diseases such as pneumonia and other upper respiratory diseases which become rampant during the cold season.
He singled out the elderly and children as those who should be dressed in heavy clothes as they are vulnerable to the diseases.