Adewole: Malaria Remains a Major Public Health Problem in Nigeria
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has said that despite the fact that a lot of progress has been made in the past few years, malaria still remain a major public health problem in Nigeria.
Adewole stated this in Abuja at the commemoration of the 2018 World Malaria Day with the theme ‘Ready to Beat Malaria’, and the slogan ‘Together We Can’.
He reminded that the celebration of the World Malaria Day dates back to the historic gathering of African Heads of State in 2000 where over 44 countries, bilateral and multilateral organisations who were in attendance, agreed on the target of halving the burden of malaria in Africa by year 2010, adopted the framework for monitoring progress and evaluating outcome.
“It is indeed sad that malaria though preventable, still remains a major Public Health problem in Nigeria and constitutes a major barrier to social and economic development,” he said.
The minister however, assured that the “Government is concerned about this and is working hard to improve the quality of care and increase access to anti-malaria commodities particularly amongst the poor. We are also working towards securing additional funding to close the existing commodity gap and move Nigeria towards elimination.
“I must inform you that malaria control activities in the country are guided by the National Malaria Strategic Plan (NMSP: 2014-2020), which was recently reviewed to make it more responsive to our vision of a malaria-free Nigeria.”
He noted that the malaria epidemiology for Nigeria is changing; adding that a recent mapping by the “LINK Project” of The London School of Hygiene demonstrated a 50 per cent gradual shift from hyper and holo-endemic to meso-endemic pattern between 2000 and 2015.
According to him, 92 per cent of the population now lives in areas with a prevalence rate of between five per cent and 39 per cent. He said this is similar to the results of the 2015 Nigeria Malaria Indicator Survey (NMIS) which showed a remarkable reduction in malaria prevalence from 42 per cent to 27 per cent which is a commendable stride in government’s efforts to stem malaria.
Adewole also stated that the result of the 2015 NMIS showed that 69 per cent of households own at least one Insecticide Treated Net (ITN) and 35 per cent of households have at least one ITN for every two people who stayed in the house the previous night.
He said: “In order to ensure continuous access to mosquito nets, government and partners embarked on replacement campaigns. In 2017 about 16,199,953 Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs) were distributed in seven states - Sokoto, Edo, Kwara, Osun, Imo, Ondo and Adamawa. This year, we plan to distribute about 18.4 million nets in six states – Nassarawa, Ogun, Jigawa, Katsina, Gombe and Kebbi states. Nets are also being distributed through antenatal clinics for pregnant women and routine immunisation of children. It is common knowledge that a lot of the LLINs distributed are not used. In 2015 National Malaria Indicator Survey report showed that 37 per cent of the household slept under an LLIN the night before the survey. We are working hard to ensure that net use increases considerably.
“Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) has been effective wherever it has been piloted for instance confirmed cases of malaria in Misau LGA in Bauchi State dropped from 14,949 to 4,819 (67.8 per cent reduction) after the application of IRS intervention. However, less than one per cent of households in Nigeria are covered by IRS. May I use this medium to call on investor, donor and partners to support the intervention. I am glad to inform you that Nigeria recently developed and printed the National Insecticide Resistance Management (IRM) plan to provide guidance and ensure effective monitoring, management of vector resistance and monitoring of quality vector control interventions.”