Malaria: Nigeria Accounts For 32% Global Deaths …Stakeholders Proffer Solutions

Out of the global annual estimates of 627,000 malaria deaths, Nigeria has been said to account for 200,640 deaths, representing some 32 per cent of the toll in 2013 alone.
The Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Dr Theophilus Odagme, made the disclosure in his state-wide broadcast to mark the 2016 World Malaria Day in Port Harcourt, Monday.
Odagme stated that the year’s theme: ‘End Malaria for Good’, and slogan ‘yes, it’s achievable’, reiterated the government’s commitment to ensuring that the percentage is not only reduced to its barest minimum but that the scourge of malaria comes to an end in the country.
According to him, “May I again, use this opportunity to remind the entire good people of Rivers State that ‘the federal, state, local governments, and the private sector in Nigeria hereby commit themselves and all the people to intensive action to attain the goal of malaria-free Nigeria, that is a country where malaria is no longer a public health problem, and malaria-related deaths are less than 1:100,000 population”.
In achieving set targets, Odagme said that the state government has over the past one year, distributed anti-malarial commodities such as Artemisinim Combination Therapy (ACTs) and the long-lasting insecticide nets (LLINs) through its third party logistics, The Riders of Health.
He said the government has been conducting training and retraining of medical personnel on the current World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on the management of malaria, while providing a robust M & E structure that captures malaria data from all its health facilities.
Odagme said that in addition, the government has been coordinating meetings amongst partners and facilitating prompt dissemination of information to the public on malaria, encouraging the use of Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) for testing prior to use of drugs, conducting advocacy, communication and social mobilization at the state and local government levels, among others.
The commissioner urged all hands to be on deck to ensure a free-malaria nation, saying “together, we join hands today, and say, ‘yes, it’s achievable’”.
Also speaking, the Director, Centre for the Control of Malaria, University of Port Harcourt, Dr Hamilton Ofurum, said that the fight against malaria needs the collaboration of all stakeholders in the state to ensure that the environment and surroundings are kept clean always.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Caroline Wale, during the distribution of free LLTMNs to civil servants in the state, urged Rivers people to embrace the use of LLTMNs, which she said, are the most effective for now in the prevention of malaria, and encouraged all to keep their environment clean and avoid stagnant water, which breeds mosquitoes that spread malaria disease.
The Director of Public Health in the ministry, Dr Nnanna Onyekwere, said that all water-fronts and bushes around the state capital must be cleared to avoid mosquitoes.
He listed Ahoada, Bori and Port Harcourt, among others, as places where the ministry has distributed free mosquito nets in the last couple of years to reduce the burden of malaria in the rural areas.
Similarly, the Chairman, Rivers State Waste Management Agency, Felix Obuah, has said that for Rivers State to record a free-malaria regime, the people must improve on their sanitary habit, which he said at present, was very unacceptable.
Obuah, who gave the advise in a statement signed on his behalf by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Jerry Needam, insisted that the people must keep their environment clean to avoid the breeding of mosquitoes and the spread of malaria.

Lady Godknows Ogbulu & Susan Serekara-Nwikhana