Again, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on Nigeria and other malaria-endemic countries to scale up efforts to eliminate the scourge. The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, made the call in Abuja in an event to mark this year’s World Malaria Day (WMD). The global health agency urged countries to increase the pace of progress so that they can achieve a 40 per cent reduction in global malaria cases and deaths by 2020.

The theme of this year’s WMD, “Zero malaria stars with me’’ is a grassroots campaign that aims to keep malaria high on the political agenda, mobilise additional resources, and empower communities to take ownership of malaria prevention and care. According to the recent World Malaria Report, the global tally of malaria reached 429,000 deaths and 212 million new cases in 2015. It showed that the rate of new malaria fell by 21 per cent globally between 2010 and 2015, and malaria deaths fell by 29 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively.

In 2017, there were 219 million malaria cases and 435,000 malaria deaths worldwide. About $3.1 billion resources were made available for malaria in 2017. Although malaria-affected countries and their development partners have made remarkable progress in reducing the total number of malaria cases and deaths since 2000, available statistics reveal that the toll of malaria remains unacceptably high.

According to WHO, every two minutes, a child dies of this preventable and treatable disease. And each year, more than 200 million new cases of the disease are reported. Approximately, 70 per cent of the world’s malaria burden is concentrated in 11 countries: 10 on the African continent, plus one in India.

The African countries affected are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania. Malaria is one of the world’s leading killers.

It is the leading cause of death among children worldwide. Most of these deaths are in Africa, where more than 250,000 children die from the disease every year. Children under 5 are at greatest risk of its life-threatening complications. Malaria kills 435,000 people a year, most of them children.

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In Nigeria, malaria is a major public health problem. It accounts for more cases and deaths in Nigeria. Malaria is a risk for 97 per cent of the nation’s population. There are about 100 million malaria cases with over 300,000 deaths per year in the country. Malaria also contributes to about 11 per cent of maternal mortality in the country. The disease accounts for 60 per cent of outpatient visits and 30 per cent of hospitalisations among children under five years of age in the country.

However, there are many challenges militating against efforts to curb the disease in the country. An estimated 65 per cent of Nigeria’s population lives in poverty. Poverty is a major factor in malaria prevention and treatment. Also, the resistance to pyrethroids, the only insecticides used in vector control, has been reported in 27 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

We commend the global agency and call on the Federal and State governments to heed the WHO advice and invest more resources in malaria prevention and control. Government should commit more funds to long lasting insecticidal bed nets and malaria rapid diagnostic test kits and preventive medicines to halt the spread of the disease.

Also, the recent immunisation of children against malaria in Malawi using the only licensed vaccine to protect against the mosquito-spread disease is commendable. The first malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, was developed by GlaxoSmithKline and was approved by European Medicines Agency in 2015. Malawi is the first of three countries in Africa in which the vaccine will be made available to children up to 2 years of age. It is expected that the vaccine will be introduced in Ghana and Kenya soon.

According to the WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “We have seen tremendous gains from bed nets and other measures to control malaria in the last 15 years, but progress has stalled and even reversed in some areas.  We need new solutions to get the malaria response back on track, and this vaccine gives us a promising tool to get there. The malaria vaccine has the potential to save tens of thousands of children’s lives.”  

We hope that the vaccine will get to Nigeria and many other countries in the near future. Until then, let the government prioritise its malaria prevention and control measures.