THE SHAME OF MALARIA SCOURGE

The authorities could do more to contain the disease

In virtually all critical human development indicators, Nigeria is taking the back seat. Despite costing Nigeria up to N132 billion annually, Malaria is yet to receive the level of attention it deserves, as government, at all levels, refuses to take responsibility for the disease. It then came as little surprise when the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehinare, disclosed recently that Nigeria records the highest number of malaria cases and deaths globally. According to Ehinare, Nigeria alone contributed about 27 per cent of the global malaria cases and 27 per cent of global deaths.  

All Nigerians, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), are at the risk of malaria because it is a tropical disease. The 2020 World Malaria report released last month stated that “malaria is transmitted all over Nigeria; 76 per cent of the population live in high transmission areas, while 24 per cent live in low transmission areas. The transmission season can last all year round in the south and about three months or less in the northern part of the country. The primary vector across most of the country is the Anopheles mosquitoes.” 

 While humongous amounts of money have been thrown at this deadly disease, the fatalities keep mounting. Available statistics reveal that Global Fund committed some $708 million to malaria fight in Nigeria between 2008 and 2021, while the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) has contributed a total of $420 million since 2010. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) also last year committed to investing $90 million over the next five years in Nigeria to tackle malaria in eight states.    

There have also been several programmes and initiatives to combat the disease. In the year 2000, the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) slogan was launched with fanfare. RBM is a global initiative intended to halve the suffering caused by this disease by 2010. The initiative is being developed as a social movement. Action is directed by national authorities backed by a global partnership which consists of development agencies, banks, private sector groups and researchers. We also launched into the phase of mosquito treated bed nets and hundreds of billions went down the drain. We are a country where the government fantasises slogans, deodorises mantras and invests less action in deliverables.    

Last October, WHO announced its endorsement of the first malaria vaccine for children. The vaccine, code-named RTS.S and manufactured by the drug firm GKS, was endorsed after clinical trials involving two million doses in three countries: Ghana, Malawi, and Kenya. This development is a breakthrough for public health, especially in our country but we are not aware of any efforts by Nigerian authorities to engage the company. 

The Director, Malaria Project, Society for Family Health, Dr. Ernest Nwokolo once resorted to scary imagery to underline the depth of the malaria scourge in Nigeria. He said the 800 Nigerian deaths recorded daily in the country due to malaria was like having two Boeing 747 plane crash with no survivor every day. His data corresponded with a submission by former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, that malaria “is responsible for 60 per cent of outpatient visits to health facilities, 30 per cent of childhood deaths, 25 per cent of deaths in children under one year and 11 per cent of maternal deaths” in Nigeria.     

Although Ehinare said the country had been making efforts to contain the scourge of Malaria, he has not highlighted those measures even when the picture he painted of the challenge was of crisis proportion. Therefore, what Nigerians expect is not only a lamentation about the number of Nigerians that are killed by Malaria, but rather what the authorities will do to change the unfortunate narrative.