Nigeria urged to spend more to fight worsening malaria scourge –NMEP

An increase has been urged for in domestic funding of the fight against malaria in Nigeria. Government at all levels were also enjoined to give more resources for malaria control activities in the country.

These and more were the demands made by the National Coordinator, National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), Audu Mohammed, during the agency’s 4th quarter media chat 2018 in Abuja on Monday.

Audu also asked the private sector to be a major contributor to the efforts.

Speaking through the Head, Advocacy Communication and Social Mobilisation (ACSM), Chukwu Okoronkwo, the National Coordinator said that about 97 percent of the population, about 191 million Nigerians, still face risks of malaria.

He said: “We need the government to give more resources for malaria control activities in the country and this is not limited to the federal government, state of local governments alone. The private sectors need to be a major contributor to this fight.”

He said he wasn’t asking the private to give money to NMEP, “but they just have to do something within their environment,” Audu stressed.

He further called for a major subsidy on malaria commodity in order to ensure easy access to them.

“One critical area about domestic funding is the issue of subsidy of malaria commodity. Commodities in the private sector cannot be accessed because they are too expensive.

“These commodities are already subsidised at the government health facilities because donors are bringing them in at subsidised rates. That also has to happen for all health facilities, whether government or private,” he said.

Audu also noted that malaria remains an important public health issue in Nigeria as it accounts for 30 percent of childhood mortality and 11 percent of maternal mortality.

The World Malaria Report 2017 and 2018 showed that global progress against malaria has stalled and the world is off-track to meet the milestone for 2020 as reflected in the global technical strategy for malaria 2016-2030.

The report indicated that around 70 percent of all deaths in 2017 was concentrated in 10 African countries and India.

According to the report, cases in the African countries, which include the 10 African countries, especially Nigeria and Burkina Faso, rose by 3.5 million in 2017, compared to the previous year.

The report revealed that while new cases fell steadily until 2016, the number rose from 217 million to 219 million in 2017.

Audu said Nigeria needs to redouble efforts to make an appreciable impact in the malaria landscape.

He urged the general public to maintain environmental sanitation in and around the places they live and work.

The Head, Integrated Vector Management (IVM) branch of NMEP, Okoko Oyale, called for preventive measures, which include but are not limited to the use of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs), Indoor Residual Spray (IRS) and larval source management, uptake of sulphadoxin pyremethamine (SP) by pregnant women for prevention of malaria, as well as environmental management.

He said environmental management seeks to reduce the number of all mosquitoes as well as targeted malaria vector species.