Our report shines a spotlight on countries that are well on their way to eliminating malaria,” said Dr Pedro Alonso, director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) global malaria programme.
It is a cause for concern that Nigeria got a poor rating in the latest WHO report on malaria. The report, titled ‘Eliminating Malaria’, called for a global commitment to eliminate malaria in at least 35 new countries by 2030. WHO described the objective as “ambitious but achievable”.
Alonso commended the countries that were winning the fight against malaria, and highlighted “the urgent need for greater investment in settings with high rates of malaria transmission, particularly in Africa.”
From a Nigerian perspective, the organisation’s negative statistics are particularly disturbing because Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo account for 35 percent of malaria-related deaths globally. In 2015, 214 million cases of malaria were reported in 95 countries, and more than 400,000 people died of malaria.
In Nigeria, about 100,000 people die from malaria every year, according to the head of the Malaria Consortium’s Nigeria Office, Dr Kolawole Maxwell, in a statement to mark World Malaria Day on April 25. Launched in 2008 by WHO Member States, the World Malaria Day signifies the scale of the malaria crisis and its importance as a global health issue. It serves as a regular reminder of the need for “continued investment and sustained political commitment for malaria prevention and control”.
What it will take for Nigeria to make the desired progress in eliminating malaria? It is noteworthy that Alonso said: “New technologies must go hand in hand with strong political and financial commitment.” The international health agency strikingly observed that paying lip service to the anti-malaria effort was a major drawback. A remarkable 60-percent decline in global mortality figures since the year 2000 has been credited to the use of insecticide-treated bed-nets, indoor residual spraying, and rapid diagnostic testing. The logical next level is elimination, which is why the theme for World Malaria Day 2016 is “End Malaria for Good”.
There are positive examples that should galvanise the laggardly countries. In 2015, for the first time, Europe had no indigenous cases of malaria, which was a significant improvement from 90,000 cases in 1995. There were eight other countries that reportedly achieved similarly remarkable zero cases in 2014: Argentina, Costa Rica, Iraq, Morocco, Oman, Paraguay, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates.
The reality that malaria can lead to death is a central reason it should be taken more seriously. The role and value of continuous public enlightenment cannot be overstressed. Although there is no vaccine for malaria, it has been demonstrated that the mosquito-borne infectious disease can be prevented through medications, mosquito elimination and the prevention of bites. Also, it has been established that elimination of malaria requires a sufficient lowering of “high human population density, high anopheles mosquito population density and high rates of transmission from humans to mosquitoes and from mosquitoes to humans”. Furthermore, preventing the availability of open water in which mosquito larvae develop and adding substances to arrest their development have been found effective.
Obviously, since prevention is better than cure, the health authorities should promote preventive approaches more purposefully, in addition to providing adequate facilities and personnel for diagnostic and curative purposes.
The country’s unfavourable anti-malaria rating can be improved through greater focus by the health authorities. Having benefited from an eight-year UK aid-funded support to the national malaria programme, the country should build on the gains of the assistance by further developing its health care system.
Maxwell was quoted as saying: ”When we started, around 60 percent of people who came to the outpatients department of any hospital were complaining of fever… Malaria places a huge burden on the health systems.”
In the final analysis, the WHO report should be a wake-up call for the Federal Government to demonstrate “strong political and financial commitment” necessary to achieve the elimination of malaria.
END
Be the first to comment