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Taming the malaria
scourge
By Sun News Publishing
Friday, June 27, 2008
The recent statement credited to the Kano State Commissioner
for Health, Malama Aisha Ishiaku, that malaria scourge accounts
for an annual economic burden of about N132 billion in Nigeria
has, once again, drawn attention to the intolerable status
of the debilitating disease in the country.
The condition is said to be responsible for an estimated 30
percent of deaths among children, 11 percent among pregnant
women and 80 percent of diseases in reported cases in health
facilities. It is certainly the leading cause of morbidity
and mortality in the country.
Available records show that 50 percent of Nigeria’s
population suffers from, at least, one episode of malaria
attack each year. The disease accounts for over 45 percent
of all out-patient visits.
About 300,000 Nigerians, mostly children below five years,
die annually from the disease. It is estimated that five percent
of the children born in the country die annually of the scourge.
Malaria is also responsible for 25 percent of childhood deaths
while it incapacitates over five million Nigerians annually.
The economic impact of the disease can be better appreciated
in terms of costs to families who provide treatment and preventive
measures. It also includes costs to the government, which
spends funds on awareness campaigns and provides malaria control
measures. It involves programmes such as the Roll Back Malaria
initiative of the federal government and costs due to reduced
economic activities in victims as well as premature deaths.
In highly endemic countries, the disease has led to a deficit
in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated yearly at 1.3 percent.
In Nigeria, malaria is directly or remotely responsible for
the loss of millions of productive hours, resulting in colossal
reduction in individual and collective productivity.
In Africa, malaria accounts for 10 percent of the continent’s
disease burden as well as the $12 billion yearly lost in productivity.
Globally, about 40 percent of world population (2.4 billion)
is known to be at risk. An estimated 300-500 million cases
of malaria occur globally every year.
The prevailing high incidence of malaria in Nigeria is indeed
unacceptable considering the fact that the disease is both
preventable and curable. We cannot at this level of our development
continue to lose billions of naira to malaria either to drugs
for treatment or to lost man-hours occasioned by the disease.
It is regrettable that this treatable condition is responsible
for the high child and maternal morbidity and mortality in
the country.
Knowing full well that this disease is preventable and curable,
we advise that the three levels of government in the country
jointly and singly take proactive measures to stem and tame
the endemic disease.
Although the malaria parasite has, over time, developed resistance
to some of the first line drugs for its treatment like chloroquine,
the good news is that there are other available efficacious
malaria drugs that can overcome such resistance and effect
the needed cure.
Nevertheless, the government must ensure that Nigerians, especially
those in rural areas, have access to health facilities where
they can avail themselves of prompt malaria treatment and
at affordable costs too.
While we enjoin those infected by the condition to go for
treatment at the nearest health facility, we advise that more
spirited efforts be geared towards vector control. Such control
measures include the use of insecticides for destroying mosquito
larvae and adult forms and destroying breeding places for
mosquitoes, the use of insecticide-treated bed nets and cleaning
of surroundings, among others.
However, there is the need for the government to intensify
research to discover potent malaria vaccine that experts believe
will deal a lethal blow to the ubiquitous and menacing disease
condition.
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